Best Bets on Today’s MLB Player Props Market
The 2023 MLB season is underway and VSiN has you covered with every way you can possibly bet on a baseball game. As always, Adam Burke will have daily best bets to give you some ideas of what to back when it comes to moneylines, run lines and totals. However, I’m tackling player props here, and I’m targeting Rafael Devers, Matt Duffy and Shane Bieber on Tuesday, April 4th. Keep reading to find out how I’m betting on each of them.
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MORE: Check out our Pro Picks page for everything our experts have on April 4
Here are our favorite MLB prop bets for Tuesday, April 4:
Pittsburgh Pirates at Boston Red Sox (-140, 9)
Last night, Rafael Devers hit a home run in a 7-6 loss to the Pirates. Now, we’re going to Devers’ total bases prop and taking the over. The 26-year-old is going to get a crack at Roansy Contreras, who had a 4.27 ERA in nine road starts last season. Contreras is a young right-handed starter that wasn’t ever really viewed as one of the team’s top prospects. He’s more of a back-of-rotation arm, and Devers should love facing him.
Not only is Devers a player that loves to hit right-handed pitching, but he also is extremely dangerous against four-seam fastballs. And Contreras throws them on nearly half his pitches, and he tends to get pretty damn hard on them. If Contreras is firing his most commonly used pitch right into Devers’ sweet spot, it’s just hard to see this being a matchup that doesn’t go very well for the Boston slugger.
Look for Devers to pretty easily go over the 1.5 total bases mark in this one, and don’t be surprised if he has at least one extra base hit.
Bet: Devers Over 1.5 Total Bases (-110)
Toronto Blue Jays (-160, 10) at Kansas City Royals
Matt Duffy has only played in one game for the Royals this season, but he went 2 for 4 with a single, a homer and two RBIs in that game. Now, we’re expecting the 32-year-old to see the field when the Royals take on Yusei Kikuchi and the Blue Jays.
In Duffy’s head-to-head history with Kikuchi, he is 3 for 3 with two singles, a double and an RBI against the righty. That’s obviously a small sample size, but one would think that Matt Quatraro will want him in the lineup because of it. And if he does, we like him to end up having at least a single against the lefty here. Duffy has made good contact against Kikuchi in the past, and you get a much better price on backing the over on singles than you do on hits, in general.
So, let’s just hope that Duffy can get at least one hit that doesn’t go for extra bases when he faces a pitcher that had a 5.19 ERA last season — and a 5.91 ERA in road starts.
Bet: Duffy Over 0.5 Singles (-120)
Cleveland Guardians (-182, 7) at Oakland Athletics
Shane Bieber looked sharp in his first start of the season, as he pitched 6.0 innings of shutout ball against the Seattle Mariners. However, Bieber struck out only six batters in that game, and he is coming off a season in which he only struck out 198 hitters in 200.0 innings. He is no longer missing bats the way he used to, and that’s why we’re going to the under on his strikeout total in tonight’s start against the A’s.
Oakland did struggle to avoid strikeouts against righties last season, and the team is already fifth in the league in strikeout rate against them in 2023. However, Bieber’s stuff has been getting worse and worse over the years, and he likely won’t be getting near the 100-pitch mark just yet. He threw 87 pitches in the meeting with the Mariners last Thursday, and he likely won’t go too far over that number here. Without pitching more than seven innings, it’s hard to envision him striking out at least seven hitters.
Bet: Bieber Under 6.5 Strikeouts (-135)
Did you know that you can parlay these three picks together at +509 odds? Try out our VSiN Parlay Calculator HERE!
