We went with a pair of under-the-radar names for yesterday’s MLB player props, but we’re shifting back towards some stars for today’s plays. For our first, we’re heading towards the early-afternoon slate where we’ll find Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros in their matchup with the St. Louis Cardinals. For our second play, we’ll go a little later in the day to find Gunnar Henderson of the Baltimore Orioles against the Cleveland Guardians.
We finally got our first 2-0 sweep of the MLB season yesterday. It took some luck, but we got the job done. In his first plate appearance, Jonathan Aranda crushed a solo home run to drive himself in. In the Xavier Edwards world, he started the game 0-for-3, and it looked like we were heading toward another split. Then, the Miami Marlins found a little bit of life at the plate, and Edwards was able to get his second hit of the night in the bottom of the ninth with two outs.
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- Jose Altuve 2+ Hits (+210) - .50 Units Bet365
- Gunnar Henderson 3+ Total Bases (+240) - .50 Units FanDuel
Jose Altuve 2+ Hits (+210) Bet365
He’s a little long in the tooth, and he’s taken a step back from the production we saw from him in his younger years. Despite that, Altuve still can do some damage. For his career, he’s loved hitting against LHP. He has a career batting average of .327 with a .897 OPS against them while batting .299 and .806 against RHP. Over the last week, he’s batting just .217, but he still has a batting average of .300 for the season. Now, he gets a matchup he likes to try and bounce back.
The Cardinals are sending Steven Matz to the mound for today’s contest. Matz has functioned as a reliever to start the season, but he’s expected to be a starter for the next few weeks. For his career, his average is about even against RHB and LHB at .263 vs. .261, but his OPS allowed jumps to .763 compared to .715. Additionally, of the 140 home runs that he’s allowed, 124 of them have gone to RHB. In seven plate appearances against Matz, Altuve is 3-for-6 with a home run. Altuve continues to lead off for this team, and I like him to bounce back in a strong matchup.
Gunnar Henderson 3+ Total Bases (+240) FanDuel
After missing a little time to start the season, Gunnar started a little slow, but he’s steadily been finding his groove over the last week. He went 1-for-13 in his first three games back, but he’s 8-for-25 over his last six games. Of his eight hits, three of them went for extra bases, and he’s cleared this line in back-to-back games entering tonight. He carries the traditional lefty tendency of batting better against RHP with a .283 average and .895 OPS compared to .225 and .704 marks against LHP.
Tonight, the Guardians are sending RHP Gavin Williams to the mound. Williams has completed 13 innings through three starts. He’s allowed 12 hits and seven runs, and, while his career average against lefties is better than it is against righties with a mark of .225 compared to .240, his OPS gets worse. LHB hit .707 against him while righties are down at .680. In three plate appearances against Williams, Henderson is 2-for-2 with a home run and a walk. He also has an average exit velocity of a 105.9 in this matchup along with an expected batting average of .763. Henderson hasn’t hit his first home run of the season yet, and this is a great spot for him to get that monkey off of his back.
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