While this is a battle for worst in the NL east, I am actually very excited for this game. We will see two of the national league’s brightest young arms in Sandy Alcantara and Josiah Gray. Sandy is the far more proven commodity at this point, and may even have a shot at the Cy Young this season. WIth that said, I will be looking towards his opponent for today’s prop.
Josiah Gray was a top prospect in the Dodger’s system for many years prior to being the key piece in the Max Scherzer deal last season. He was then thrown right into the mix for the Nats and started 12 games for them. While he did get hit around a bit, he showed why he was a huge prospect on many occasions. We have witnessed more of the same this season. An improved yet still hittable arsenal of pitches that has led to a 4.71 ERA so far this year. Despite that, he has a 6-4 record, 1.11 K per inning, and a 2.22 road ERA. He has shown a tendency to pick up more K in night games (1.22 per inning) than in day games (.90 per inning). He sits in the 70th percentile in K%, and 75th percentile in whiff%. Perhaps the most intriguing part of this prop has been his success vs the Marlins. In his 2 starts vs them this year, he has picked up 10 and 7 strikeouts. He also had 2 starts vs them last season resulting in 7 and 8 K. The main thing that sticks out to me about this matchup is the Marlins right handed heavy lineup. Outside of Jazz Chisholm, the Marlins start up to 8 right handers in their lineups on occasion. That is big for us here due to Gray’s 27% K rate vs right handers, a large improvement on his 22.5% rate he has vs lefties. His best strikeout pitch is his slider, a pitch he is reluctant to throw against lefties and extremely willing to throw to righties. The Marlins average the 7th most strikeouts per game at 8.85 and have a 23.9% K rate at home this season, so I like this matchup for Gray to pick up 6 or more K.
