It is a big day for the Orioles. They are bringing up the top prospect in baseball, Adley Rutschman, and have one of their top pitching prospects on the mound. After years of bottom feeding in the AL east, the O’s get a glimpse of their future. This will be Kyle Braddish’s 5th start of his young career. He has had his ups and downs so far but is coming off a 6 strikeout game, and struck out 11 Cardinals batters in the start prior to that so I have my eye on his strikeouts today.
The big right hander has a 4 pitch arsenal featuring 3 plus pitches, fastball, curveball, and slider and will mix in a changeup vs lefty batters. He racked up 268 strikeouts in 216.1 minor league innings, and 22 K in 21.1 innings in the MLB. Everywhere he has gone he has a good history of strikeouts, so I am grabbing over 4.5 at plus odds in this matchup.
The Rays have been a solid target this season. They are 11th worst team in the league in strikeouts per game at 8.56 a game. They have struggled making contact vs righties. They have the 5th worst K% over the last 30 days and have struck out in 25.2% of their plate appearances vs righties so far this season. I like the rookie to K 5+ rays batters today.
