It's a busy day in MLB on Tuesday with the trade deadline and 15 games on tap.
The pregame narrative: I'm serving up four prop picks for the occasion. The plays are on Tyler Glasnow, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Royce Lewis and Justin Steele.
Check out these MLB prop bets for July 30.
MLB prop bets
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Best bet: Glasnow over 5.5 Ks (-141)
It's rare to see a line this low for the Los Angeles Dodgers ace. There were games earlier in the season when books were hanging 8.5 lines on him.
The main reasons for the number are this: The righty has only made one start since July 5 and he faces a San Diego Padres team with the lowest strikeout rate in baseball.
That's not enough to sway me off this wager, though. Glasnow threw 91 pitches in his last outing, so there is little to no concern about his workload.
That came six days ago against the San Francisco Giants and marked just the fifth time this season he hasn't recorded at least six strikeouts.
Glasnow is an elite strikeout arm, entering the outing with a 33% K rate that ranks No. 1 in the National League (minimum 110 innings).
Among pitchers who have logged 400-plus frames since 2019, only Jacob deGrom has a higher K% than Glasnow.
Key stat: Glasnow has cleared this line in 14 of his 19 starts.
Quick picks
Gurriel over 0.5 RBI (+128): Gurriel's Arizona Diamondbacks face Washington Nationals lefty Patrick Corbin tonight.
Corbin (5.26 ERA, 1.46 WHIP) has thrown the ball well in recent starts, especially considering how much of a punching bag he's been over the past few seasons. But he remains a near-auto-fade for me.
Gurriel should occupy a middle-of-the-order spot tonight, putting himself in a great run-producing part of the order. He'll for sure be behind Ketel Marte, who's one of the hottest hitters in the game and punishes left-handers.
The 30-year-old Gurriel hits them hard, too. Gurriel is batting .328/.355/.504 versus southpaws a year after posting an .815 OPS against them.
Righty bats are hitting .295/.342/.493 off Corbin with 13 homers.
Lewis over 1.5 bases (+130): The Minnesota Twins' oft-injured star should not have odds this long.
This is insanely good value for a slugger who enters the contest hitting .387/.459/.742 versus lefties. His 1.021 OPS in all situations is the fourth-best mark in MLB (minimum 110 plate appearances), behind a collection of the game's best in Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto.
Lewis' biggest problem is health. But when he's on the field, he's an elite bat who looks like a perennial all-star.
His Twins face New York Mets lefty starter Sean Manaea tonight.
Steele over 5.5 Ks (+116): This is another value play for me.
The Chicago Cubs left-hander has posted above-average K rates every season of his four-year career. He's doing so again this year and enters tonight with a 3.08 ERA and 3.19 FIP, which are ticks off the personal-best marks he set in 2023.
Steele faces a Cincinnati Reds team on Tuesday that has struggled versus lefties (91 wRC+, the 11th-highest K rate).
Cincinnati has the fifth-highest K rate and is 26th in wRC+ in all situations this month.
Steele has faced the Reds twice this season, topping this line once and landing on five Ks the other time. He's notched six-plus Ks in half his starts.
Picks made at 2:15 p.m. ET on 07/30/2024.
