MLB Player Props: Can Rick Porcello Strike Out 6 Tigers?

Welcome back boys and girls. After a one day hiatus, I'm back. When I last left you, we were rooting for Michael Pineda to get fewer than five strikeouts against the Astros — he got four. Yesterday, under Justin Bailey's instructions, you were rooting for Tanner Roark to get fewer than five strikeouts — he got four.

If only it was as easy as looking at the guy in the featured image and betting on him to strike out fewer than five guys. If only, if only … that Madame Zeroni was whacked, eh?

MLB Player Props – Thursday, April 25

Our FantasyLabs MLB Player Props Tool leverages our projections against odds offered at various sportsbooks and grades each prop on a scale of 1 to 10. All odds as of 3 p.m. ET. View live odds here.

Red Sox SP Rick Porcello

The Pick: Over 5.5 (-110)

Like many Red Sox pitchers, Rick Porcello is off to a piss-poor start to the 2019 season. So bad that he even shaved his beard yesterday!

The baby-faced Porcello has an ERA of 8.47 this season .. .EIGHT POINT FOUR SEVEN! Let's hope the lack of beard changes his luck because we need him to go deep into tonight's ballgame to get six strikeouts.

Porcello has never been a big whiffer, but posted a career high of 8.94 K/9 last year. This Tigers team has been striking out in bunches, though, and has the second-highest strikeout rate in the league at 26.4%, trailing only the Blue Jays.

The Tigers have played 23 games this year, allowing a surprisingly high 16 opposing starters to strike out at least six batters, led by Chris Sale's 10-strikeout performance earlier in the series.

Obviously Porcello's performances over four starts this year are troubling, but facing his old team might be just what the doctor ordered. In addition to a high strikeout rate, Detroit is also the third-lowest scoring team in the league at just 3.3 runs per game.

I would not bet on this prop if the over/under moved up to 6.