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Eys Breakers (4/11/22): MLB Props Preview & Best Bets Today

Keith Eyster Mon 4/11 11:04am PT
Image Credit: Imagn

MLB betting expert Keith Eyster dives into his best prop bets to target Monday, April 11th in his new series “Eys Breakers.” Use our Caesars welcome offer to get $1100 first-bet insurance today!

The NBA regular season is officially in the books and the play-in tournament will begin tomorrow. 

It is possible we will still target some NBA player props during the playoffs, but we will primarily be focused on MLB moving forward. 

The MLB schedule is again spread out with several afternoon games on the slate today, but there are some spots tonight where I am interested in pitcher strikeout props.  

Free MLB Pitcher Props For Today

Perhaps the most exciting game of the evening is the AL East clash between Toronto and New York. Alek Manoah takes the ball for Toronto, while Jameson Taillon counters for the Yankees. 

Manoah was very good as a rookie posting a 3.22 ERA with a 27.7% K rate and 8.7% BB rate over 111.2 innings.

The Yankees 24.5% strikeout rate was the 6th highest rate in baseball last season.  Their re-signing of Anthony Rizzo, plus the trades for Josh Donaldson and Isaiah Kiner-Falefa should help with that somewhat, but they still project to strikeout plenty.

Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Joey Gallo should be fixtures of the lineup and all strikeout at a higher clip than league average – significantly higher in the cases of Stanton and Gallo. 

Manoah actually made his Major League debut against the Yankees in May of last season, and he delivered 6 shutout innings while striking out 7. 

He had a more difficult time in his second outing against them in September, allowing 3 runs over 5.2 innings with only 4 strikeouts. 

He is a very talented pitcher that is expected to take another step forward this season. His strikeout rate in the minors before his call-up last year was 40.9% so there is certainly room for the strikeouts to climb despite him posting a healthy 27.7% K rate in his debut season. 

I think he is able to limit the damage of the powerful Yankees lineup and rack up at least 6 strikeouts today. 

Let’s move over to the other side of the game and focus on Jameson Taillon. Taillon posted a career best 23.2% K rate last season over 144.1 innings pitched. 

He has never been a huge strikeout pitcher and he gets one of the best offenses in baseball tonight in Yankee Stadium. 

Toronto had the second best strikeout rate in baseball last year striking out at just 20.1% for the season. 

Losing Marcus Semien and adding Matt Chapman projects to bump that strikeout rate a little bit, but not enough to make this matchup much easier for Taillon. 

In addition to the low strikeouts for Toronto, they led the majors with a .200 ISO and 262 home runs. 

Given Taillon’s lengthy injury history, he is a candidate to be on a short leash tonight as well. The uncertain workload and very difficult matchup lead me to the under here for Taillon today. 

The final game I want to touch on is the Los Angeles Angels hosting the Miami Marlins. The Angels will send converted reliever Michael Lorenzen to the mound tonight. 

The matchup is great for him as the Marlins struck out at the second highest rate in the majors last year. 

However, Lorenzen has made just 5=five starts since his rookie season 7 years ago. I am very concerned how deep he will be able to go in this one. 

He has struggled with injuries throughout his career and I just cannot see the Angels pushing him in his first start of the season. 

In addition to the leash concerns, Lorenzen’s K rate has been inconsistent throughout his career. In fact, it was all the way down to 16.1% in his rookie season when he was a regular starter. 

He did see the K rate tick up as high as 24.8% in 2019 as a reliever, but it was back down to just 16.8% last season. 

There is more than enough concern with Lorenzen to interest me in the under 4.5 strikeouts despite the plus matchup with the Marlins. 

Today’s Free MLB Betting Card

As a reminder, pitcher’s workloads are limited the first couple times through the rotation so we will be more selective early in the season. There will be plenty of opportunities to get more volume down over the course of a long baseball season. 

I hope you enjoyed the breakdown and wish you all the best of luck with your bets today!