The Texas Rangers play the Seattle Mariners in the second game of their series.
The pregame narrative: Max Scherzer takes the mound for the Rangers as the Mariners counter with Logan Gilbert. I’m taking the over on a prop for each starter while fading one of Texas’ star hitters.
Check out my Rangers vs. Mariners prop picks for Sept. 14.
Rangers vs. Mariners prop picks
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Best Bet: Gilbert over 18.5 outs (-110)
The Mariners’ starter has been reliable this season and ups his play when going against the Rangers.
Gilbert’s cleared this line in both starts against Texas this season, throwing a total of 14.2 innings without giving up a single run.
He accumulated 15 strikeouts and simply dominates this Rangers offence. In 172 plate appearances, the current lineup has 29 hits (.169 batting average) with 42 Ks.
With that kind of sample size, I would feel like a fool not to try and take advantage in the prop markets.
Key stat: Gilbert has cashed this bet in six of his last seven starts.
Quick picks
Scherzer over 4.5 strikeouts (-138): Scherzer is still battling a nagging shoulder injury but that hasn’t stopped him from tallying up the strikeouts.
He’s recorded five or more Ks in four of his last five starts despite only pitching more than four innings twice.
That demonstrates his ability to fan batters even if he isn’t working late into ballgames.
Baseball Savant displays his chase rate at 36.3% which would rank in the 99th percentile if he threw enough innings to qualify.
Additionally, Seattle strikes out the most per game in the majors (10.14).
Semien under 0.5 hits (+148): Going back to Gilbert’s success, Marcus Semien has been one of the biggest contributors.
in 29 career meetings, Semien has just two hits (.069 BA) and has struck out six times.
The second baseman is hot right now, recording hits in seven of his last nine starts but that just gives us a better number to play.
I can’t ignore the disastrous history against Gilbert so I’m willing to take a shot here at some nice odds.
Picks made at 11:00 a.m. ET 09/14/2024.
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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.