All square atop the NL West, the San Francisco Giants face the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night in the second matchup of a three-game series.
The pregame narrative: The Giants won the opener, 6-2, and will now face Clayton Kershaw as underdogs at Dodger Stadium. San Francisco has won eight of its past nine games.
Check out my Giants vs. Dodgers predictions, including props on Kershaw and Jung Hoo Lee in a +325 SGP.
Giants vs. Dodgers predictions
Parlay: Giants +1.5 | Kershaw under 5.5 Ks | Lee over 1.5 total bases (+325)
Giants +1.5 (-148): The Giants have played a lot of close games recently. A historic amount, in fact.
From June 4-10, San Francisco won six consecutive games by exactly one run, which set a franchise record. And 16 of its past 18 games have been decided by either one or two runs.
Winning by such a tight margin isn’t a long-term recipe for success, but we don’t need a win from the Giants tonight. Merely hanging around is good enough, and they’ve done plenty of that this year.
San Francisco is an MLB-best 20-5 ATS as a run line underdog, per Team Rankings.
Giants starter Landen Roupp has a 1.62 ERA in his past six outings, and his team has covered a +1.5 spread in each of those games.
MLB SGP legs
Kershaw under 5.5 Ks (-245): The Giants strike out at the 11th-highest clip in the majors, but I can’t see Kershaw fanning them six times tonight.
Kershaw will be enshrined in Cooperstown as soon as he’s eligible, but that’ll have nothing to do with his 2025 results. The 18-year veteran is tracking toward career-worsts in WHIP (1.548) and K/9 (6.5).
It’s only been five starts, mind you, but the peripherals aren’t on his side, either.
Kershaw is allowing the fifth-highest hard-hit rate in the majors (55.2%), and his chase rate (24.7%) ranks in the 17th percentile, per Baseball Savant.
Last time out, Kershaw fanned seven Cardinals hitters over 5.0 innings. That looks like quite an anomaly to me, given that he had just eight total Ks over his previous four starts.
Kershaw’s max workload so far has been 5.0 innings, and if that’s his ceiling again on Saturday, he shouldn’t come particularly close to this strikeout line.
Lee over 1.5 total bases (+125): Lee is one of those rare left-hitting players who excels against left-handed pitchers. That makes this a compelling matchup for him.
- Among 158 qualified hitters, Lee ranks 22nd in wRC+ vs. LHPs (152).
- He’s slugging .565 vs. LHPs with only a 5.5% walk rate and 15.1% K rate. So he should put the ball in play in roughly four of every five plate appearances.
Keep in mind that Kershaw has allowed a .281 xBA so far this season.
People often saw that over-the-hill players have lost their fastball, and that’s strikingly accurate for Kershaw. His 89.2 mph fastball velocity is the lowest of his career (and among the lowest in MLB).
Lee is 4-4 vs. this prop in his past eight games, posting a 1.001 OPS in that span.
Giants vs. Dodgers predictions made at 3:03 p.m. ET on 06/14/2025.
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Jordan enjoys writing data-driven game previews and analysis articles — especially for MLB markets or NFL/NBA props. And as a proud Ohio University grad, he’ll always have a soft spot for college sports (especially if the Bobcats are involved). Previous stops include mlb.com, Sportsnet and The Athletic.