A pair of Los Angeles Dodgers headline my prop picks for tonight’s meeting with the Atlanta Braves.
The pregame narrative: Shohei Ohtani is well on his way to winning the NL MVP and I’m backing him to do damage against the Braves. I’m also betting on Yoshinobu Yamamoto to have a productive start and go over his strikeout total.
Check out my Dodgers vs. Braves prop picks for Sept. 16.
Dodgers vs. Braves prop picks
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Best Bet: Ohtani over 1.5 total bases (+112)
A plus-money Ohtani prop? Don’t mind if I do.
The Dodgers’ slugger has recorded multiple bases in seven of his last 12 games and has an intriguing history with Braves’ starter Max Fried.
Although Ohtani’s batting average is worse against left-handed pitching (.271) than right-handed pitching (.301), he was successful in his one career meeting with Fried earlier this season, going 3-for-3 with a homerun.
I have to believe this prop pick is at an underdog price because of the lefty vs. lefty matchup, but that small sample size indicates Ohtani has no problem teeing off Fried.
That’s actually a weird trend for the Braves starter. Even though he’s a lefty, he allows a .331 batting average and .870 OPS to batters hitting from the same side.
Key stat: Ohtani leads the NL with a .987 OPS.
Quick picks
Yamamoto over 5.5 strikeouts (+138): The Japanese pitcher may be on a pitch count but I still think he can rack up strikeouts.
In his first game back from injury, Yamamoto threw just 59 pitches over four innings of work but that was still enough time to record eight Ks.
That was against the Chicago Cubs who whiff less per game (8.52) than the Braves (9.05).
With his first start going well, I expect L.A.’s starter to keep improving game to game. And I have confidence he can top this modest total against Atlanta tonight.
According to Baseball Savant, Yamamoto is in the 89th percentile for K rate (29.1%).
Picks made at 9:10 a.m. ET 09/16/2024.
Spencer is a true sports junkie. A graduate of the Sports Journalism program at Centennial College, he first joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2023. He is now a contributing writer. He loves finding the edge to bet on in all sports but has a deep passion for the NBA and UFC. Previous stops include Sportsnet.