Astros vs. Rays Prediction & Prop Pick: A Taj Bradley Over for April 24 Showdown

John Hyslop is here with his play of the day! Check out the MLB player prop bet he’s locking in for Houston Astros vs. Tampa Bay Rays on April 24, 2023.

Astros vs. Rays Pick: Taj Bradley 6+ Strikeouts | +140 at FanDuel

We’re taking a ride over to FanDuel for this one since they are letting us ladder this kid. If you don’t know what laddering is, let me tell you. So DraftKings has this over priced at 4.5 (-170).

Obviously, since we have functioning brains, we’re not going to want to lay -170 so what I like to do in a situation like this is go to FanDuel and see the alt lines. Currently, they’ve got 6+ Ks at +140, which feels a lot better. That’s what I think we should do here. Feels right.

For starters, this Taj Bradley kid is filthy. He’s 6-foot-2 tall and weighs about 190 pounds so he looks the part. By my estimation, the cannon he has attached to the right side of his body that looks like an arm has to account for most of the 190 pounds. That’s just a guess though. I could be wrong.

What I do know is this kid made fools of the Cincinnati Reds in his last start by fanning nine of them. In the start before that, he sat down eight Boston Red Sox players. What can I say, the kid likes to strike people out.

Tonight he’s getting a pretty stiff challenge in the Houston Astros, but I think he can handle it. For starters, we’re talking Taj Bradley here. On top of that, the Astros seem to strike out against righties. On the season, they’ve fanned the second-fewest times in MLB versus southpaws.

But when it comes to right-handers, it’s a different story. We’re talking 149 Ks in just 559 at-bats. That’s bad. Bryce Elder just fanned six of these guys last series and he isn’t even a strikeout guy. This could be the greatest bet of all time.