A pair of pitchers and a hitter find their way into Saturday's MLB parlay.
The pregame narrative: Pablo Lopez is coming off his best outing of the season but is a solid fade candidate today. Luke Raley is a good pick to earn a hit while Tanner Houck is worth backing on his strikeouts prop.
Check out the best MLB parlay picks for Saturday, June 29.
MLB parlay picks
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Parlay: Lopez under 7.5 strikeouts + Raley over 0.5 hits + Houck over 4.5 strikeouts (+431)
Lopez under 7.5 strikeouts (-134): Lopez's body of work from this season suggests this line is a tad out of reach.
The Minnesota Twins hurler is averaging 6.3 strikeouts per outing, putting him noticeably below this number.
A few spike outings are preventing his average from being much lower. Lopez has gone below this total in 12 of 16 starts, including seven of his past eight.
The righty punched out 14 batters across eight innings against the Oakland Athletics last time out, but that type of volume has been a severe outlier.
The Seattle Mariners are on the schedule for Lopez tonight and they're a plus matchup. Seattle has struck out more that any other team, averaging 10.1 Ks per game.
Lopez battled the Mariners earlier this year and recorded 10 strikeouts in that outing.
Gaudy totals like that aren't the norm, though, which is why I'll gladly fade him on Saturday.
Other parlay picks
Raley over 0.5 hits (-121): This isn't the first player you'd think of when scouring the player prop market.
And rightfully so. Raley is batting a pedestrian .253 this season and hasn't recorded a knock in his last three games.
But this line isn't asking him to do too much, and there's reason to believe he can deliver.
Firstly, Lopez isn't having a great season by any stretch. He owns a 5.11 ERA and that number is up to 6.00 in June.
Secondly, Raley hit Lopez well when these two squared off earlier this season. Raley went 2-for-4 with an RBI versus the righty in May.
Houck over 4.5 strikeouts (-121): This is an extremely low number for one of baseball's best pitchers.
Houck has been dealing for the Boston Red Sox this year. He leads the AL in ERA (2.18) and is 15th in the majors in strikeouts (101).
He has topped this number in 13 of 16 starts this year — including each of his last eight — and is averaging 6.3 punchouts per game.
The matchup isn't ideal as he faces a San Diego Padres squad that produces the fewest strikeouts per contest (6.7).
Still, I will bet on the pitcher who has been one of the best in the league this season to beat a modest total.
Picks made at 11:20 a.m. on 06/29/24.
