Astros vs Rangers Sunday Night Baseball Prop Bets: Texas Spoils Blanco's Follow-Up to No-No

Prop bet #1: Blanco comes back down to earth

Neither team has struck out much this year, ranking in the Top 5 of the league in strikeout rate, and, even last year, the Houston Astros were excellent at getting the ball back into play while the Texas Rangers weren’t far behind.

So, the Over on strikeouts for either pitcher is going to be a pretty tough sell. With both props set at 4.5 strikeouts, I’m going to hold my nose and take the cheaper of the two pitchers to go Under — and that leads me to Ronel Blanco.

Dane Dunning’s strikeout numbers mirrored Blanco’s this spring — so while his track record in that department isn’t quite as strong, I feel drinking the juice on his prop is a liability. Blanco struck out just seven over nine innings in his first outing of the season. For his career as a big-league starter, he's striking out eight per nine in his eight outings. This is a spectacular letdown spot after his surprise no-hitter when he faces a much tougher offense than Toronto’s, and you’re just banking on him not going more than five innings.

Texas is also walking over 10% of the time, and Blanco’s had a long history of issues in the walk department. With the Rangers capable of exploiting that red flag — and fatigue being at play after throwing 105 pitches less than a week ago — it will be a rather short outing, and you’ve got to take the Under on a rather inflated number.

Ronel Blanco prop: Under 4.5 strikeouts (-113 at FanDuel)

Prop bet #2: Seager sees double

Blanco managed to pitch to a 60% ground ball rate in his first start of the season, something that has run counter to what we’ve seen out of him ever since he debuted in rookie ball back in 2016. At the major league level, he’s pitched to a very high 33.2% fly-ball rate, which is almost 10 points higher than average, and that should mean some extra-base hits for the Rangers.

It’s not the sexiest pick given the price, but there wasn’t anyone better on the Rangers at hitting the slider last year than Corey Seager judging by the pitch value stats. It’ll be most of what Blanco is offering if his last outing — which featured roughly 48% fastballs and 48% sliders — is any indication, and with the ball not coming back on the ground as much, the steady Seager should have the chance to pounce.

Seager has collected a hit in all but one of his games this year and has gone over one total base in his last two.

Corey Seager prop: Over 1.5 total bases (-135 at FanDuel)

Prop bet #3: Get Carter

Do I want to take Adolis Garcia to homer again here? Well, it certainly would seem likely given his 21.5% home run-to-fly ball ratio and his four round-trippers this year.

But I’m going to take a Rangers batter who has not homered yet this year, and that’s Evan Carter. He only played 23 games a season ago, but he did hit five homers and check in with a spicy 35.7% home run-to-fly ball ratio.

Carter picked up two hits on Saturday to break an 0-for-15 slump, and now that the monkey is off his back I think he’s ready to go yard. Judging by Blanco’s affinity for the fly ball over his career, we should see him serve up one or two as he regresses to the mean.

Evan Carter prop: To hit a home run - Yes (+575 at BetRivers)