Kevin Davies
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Yesterday was a busy day in baseball as the Diamondbacks outlasted the Guardians, the Red Sox slugged their way to a win over the Royals and Tyler Glasnow led the Dodgers to an important victory over the Phillies. There is plenty more action tonight, so let’s get into my 2 best MLB player prop bets for Tuesday, August 6, while you can also find out our MLB picks for each of today’s big games.
Dylan Cease (SD) to record a win (-110)
Odds available at DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publishing
Right before the MLB All-Star Game, Dylan Cease made a slight mechanical tweak. Cease and pitching coach Ruben Niebla worked on keeping his glove closer to his body during his delivery. It was intended to disguise his pitches better and create a sort of deception, but little did they know, the pair stumbled upon a jackpot. Cease’s velocity went up and his command became near-perfect. He tried this new mechanical tweak in his last start of the first half of the season against the Braves, and Cease was incredible. He threw 6 shutout innings and gave up just 1 hit while striking out 11. In his next start, he threw 7 shutout innings and once again allowed just 1 hit while punching out 10 hitters — but the best was yet to come.
Cease’s next start was against the Nationals and he threw the second no-hitter in Padres history. He followed it up with a solid outing against the Dodgers but did allow a run this time unfortunately. So in total since making a slight tweak in his delivery, Cease has allowed 1 run, 5 hits, and 36 strikeouts in 27.2 innings. That’s a 0.060 batting average allowed, a .104 xBA and just a 23% hard-hit rate. Oh, and he’s picked up the win in all 4 of those starts.
Cleveland Guardians team total over 3.5 (-130)
Odds available at DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publishing
I’m switching from the player prop to the game prop market for this one. Whenever I see the Guardians team total set at 3.5, I’m drawn in. That’s because Cleveland has scored 4 or more runs in 8 games in a row. During that 8-game span, the Guardians rank 9th in batting average, 7th in OPS and 7th in wRC+. The addition of Lane Thomas in the offense not only adds more speed to the lineup but also creates an extremely deep lineup. Yesterday, the Guardians beat up on Zac Gallen and the Arizona bullpen. Tonight, the Guardians will face Eduardo Rodriguez, who is making his season and Diamondbacks debut. The lefty has struggled with shoulder pain all season and has yet to appear for Arizona since signing with them over the winter.
Interestingly enough, E-Rod did not make any rehab starts before this appearance. He threw 4 innings of a simulated game last week, but that’s all the warm-up he’s had. Rodriguez will be on a strict pitch count tonight which means the Arizona bullpen is going to have at least half the game to cover. Since they used several high-leverage relievers last night and Slade Cecconi threw 55 pitches just 3 days ago, it might be a full team effort. I’m expecting at least 4 runs for Cleveland against a rusty E-Rod and a depleted Snakes bullpen.
Read our full Arizona Diamondbacks vs Cleveland Guardians prediction
