Paxton’s No-No Somehow Doesn’t Cash Every Under Ticket

The Highlights

• The first-five total in the Mariners-Blue Jays game closed at 4 runs.
• Three runs in the fourth and fifth innings pushed the game over the F5 total.
• James Paxton made the loss even worse by throwing a no-hitter and easily keeping the full-game total under 8.

Ever have that internal struggle over whether to bet a first-five-innings total vs. the full-game total? Well, that decision was a costly one for some tonight, as an unlucky crop somehow lost an under bet in a game that featured a no-hitter.

James Paxton has been wheeling and dealing as of late. These were his stats over his previous two starts entering the night: 13 innings, two earned runs and … 26 strikeouts! The Canuck was in his homeland of Canada to face the Blue Jays on a night in which offense was on the minds of many bettors — but not Paxton's. He probably had some high school honies in the stands he wanted to impress, even though it's a 40-plus-hour drive from his hometown to Toronto and just a two-hour one to Seattle. We all know how much of a hassle it is to go through customs, though.

With Marcus Stroman his counterpart, 52% of bettors were on the first-five under, which was set at just 4. And it was looking pretty darn good, too, as the game featured zero runs through two innings.

Then, the Seattle bats came alive. With four runs in the third and fourth innings, those F5 under bettors were praying for a scoreless fifth so they could get their money back. To borrow from Mick Jagger, we can't always get what we want.

Though F5 under bettors' ptarmigan was already cooked, Paxton just had to rub the decision to take the F5 under instead of the full game right in your face by throwing a no-hitter.

Here is the final out from James Paxton's no-hitter. The 6th in @Mariners history. Congrats #BigMaple#TrueToTheBlue#WhereiROOTpic.twitter.com/xATgYfUiLq

— ROOT SPORTS™ | NW (@ROOTSPORTS_NW) May 9, 2018

Paxton did have one message he wanted to relay to F5 under bettors during the postgame interview, though:

With DFS players loading up on a lot of expensive bats tonight, Paxton and his lofty $11,000 price tag were owned in just 8.75% of lineups across the DraftKings GPP slate, per Fantasy Labs' ownership page.