MLB Player Props: 3 Best Bets for Thursday (September 5)

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Mize missed about two months with an injury and has only made one start since coming back, but he has not had a good year overall, and was rocked in that lone start. While he only allowed one home run, he did allow five extra base hits and a HardHit rate of 60%, which is an awful number.

On the entire season, Mize has really struggled, allowing a barrel rate of 8.1%, HardHit rate of 42.8% and average exit velocity of 90.2 mph. After hitting rocket after rocket yesterday, we are confident that Tatis is going to come through with a home run tonight.

Lawrence Butler Home Run (+475) DraftKings

Seattle Mariners vs. Oakland Athletics, 3:35 p.m. ET

This is now the third day in a row we will be taking Butler to hit a home run, but, as we said yesterday, the way he keeps hitting missiles makes him a good play as long as the pitching matchup is there.

As for today, the Athletics are going up against Bryan Woo of the Mariners. Woo might not seem like a pitcher to target for home run props, but he sometimes struggles against left-handed hitters such as Butler.

Woo has only allowed nine home runs on the year, which is admittedly a low number, but six of those have come against LHH. In general, Woo’s stats across the board are significantly worse against lefties, so it is not just home runs.

Although Butler did not go yard yesterday, he still had two HardHits (nobody else on the A’s had more than one), and in general his stats over the last week are phenomenal.

He leads MLB in the following categories over the past week:

• HardHit line-drive + fly-balls (15)
• Balls launched (8)
• Barrels (9)
• Home runs (5, tied with one other batter)
• Extra-base hits (10)

He stays hot for us tonight.

Jackson Merrill Home Run (+560) Bet365

Detroit Tigers vs. San Diego Padres, 8:40 p.m. ET

Merrill is another batter we went with yesterday, but thankfully he was able to come through with a home run, and we are betting on the same thing happening once again tonight.

The pitching matchup is obviously the same that Tatis has against Mize, which is a situation that should favor Merrill, who has been among the hottest batters in baseball recently.

While he is not quite as on fire as Butler (nobody is), Merrill has still been very good recently. He has nine HardHit line-drive + fly-balls over the past week, tied with the fifth-most in MLB, with six balls launched (tied for second) and a respectable three barrels.

Mize also throws a 4-seam fastball 45% of the time to lefties, and Merrill has done most of his damage against 4-seamers. In the last month, he has hit four home runs off 4-seamers from RHP, with an absurd 17% barrel rate and 54% fly-ball rate.

Honorable Mentions:

• Manny Machado (+450) FanDuel
• Mike Yastrzemski (+600) FanDuel

These two are worthy wagers to make as well, they just did not quite make the top-three list.

Machado is another batter on the Padres who has been hitting rockets and matches up favorably with Mize, while Yastrzemski has the benefit of going up against the home run machine Merrill Kelly.

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