Major League Baseball is back in action with a full slate of 15 games on Friday.
There are some weather concerns in Detroit and Cleveland, so we’ll avoid those matchups in our best bets.
Let’s dive in and look at two of my favorite prop bets to target on Friday.
MLB best bets for Friday, April 12
Paul Blackburn over 17.5 outs (-110, DraftKings)
Blackburn is off to a solid start this season for the Athletics, working 13 innings in his first two starts without allowing a run.
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He gets a great matchup at home in one of the best pitchers parks in baseball, facing a Nationals team that posted the second-lowest ISO and eighth-lowest wRC+ in the league last season.
New addition Joey Gallo figures to help in the ISO department, but he also adds a bunch of strikeouts to Washington’s lineup.
Factor in the ballpark downgrade, and it becomes hard to see Blackburn struggling with any type of power from the Nationals’ lineup.
Blackburn generally pitches to contact to generate ground balls, a strategy that should be quite easy to execute against the high-contact Nationals, who posted the third-highest ground ball rate in MLB last season.
The Nationals are also not a team that walks very much; they posted the second-lowest walk rate in MLB last season.
They project to roll out seven hitters on Friday night who own a walk rate below 6.5 percent against right-handed pitching since the beginning of last season.
There are multiple factors suggesting Blackburn should have an efficient outing in this matchup. I like him to work at least six innings and go over 17.5 outs.
Brandon Pfaadt has struggled this season after showing flashes as a rookie in 2023. MLB Photos via Getty Images Brandon Pfaadt over 5.5 strikeouts (-132, FanDuel)
Pfaadt made his MLB debut last season as a highly regarded prospect, but he posted primarily underwhelming results.
We saw flashes of the upside during the Diamondbacks’ unexpected run to the World Series, particularly in the NLCS when he dominated the Phillies with 16 strikeouts in two starts.
His 2024 top-line results don’t look great, as he struggled against an elite Braves offense in his second start after dominating the Rockies in his season debut.
I’m willing to give any pitcher a pass against the Braves, and the five runs he allowed were mostly BABIP driven.
The underlying stats through two starts suggest Pfaadt might be continuing a breakout that began during the playoffs last year.
His strikeout rate is up to 27.1 percent, and his walk rate is a sparkling 2.1 percent.
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He has increased his sweeper usage to 32.8 percent (from 27 percent last season), and he has generated 41.7 percent whiffs and a 25.9 percent put-away rate with the pitch.
His swinging strike rate sits at 15.5 percent and suggests there might be even more strikeouts coming.
He gets a matchup on Friday against a Cardinals offense that has struggled so far this season. St. Louis owns an 81 wRC+ and has struck out at the 10th-highest rate (24 percent) in baseball.
I think Pfaadt will get back to the dominance he displayed in his first start and go over 5.5 strikeouts.
