All of these picks are on BetMGM.

San Diego Padres vs. Los Angeles Dodgers @ 8:08 PM EST

Pitching Matchup: Yu Darvish (3.31 ERA) vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3.00 ERA)

In terms of picking a winner, we are rooting for the Padres. We took them +2500 to win the NL Pennant and +5000 to win the World Series. Already being invested in the long term from the Padres has me looking at the props market.

We will look at two different hitters today, one from each team, who will make the biggest impact on this game. These squads have so many enticing options, but two men rose above.

Let’s start with the Padres side. Fernando Tatis Jr has been the most prolific Padres hitter thus far, with incredible numbers at Dodger Stadium, but that’s priced into his lines. I also see no reason for the Dodgers to give him anything to hit. Another player comes close to the production level against the Dodgers and hit a home run against this pitcher in game one.

This feels like the Manny Machado game. He was criticized for throwing a ball with a little more zip than usual into the Dodgers dugout. He was the one who got his team in a circle in the dugout to calm them down after Dodger fans threw a ball at Profar. He is the heartbeat of this Padres team, and on top of it, he’s a former Dodger. It’s hard for me to imagine he doesn’t have an impact today.

Machado sees Yamamoto well. We’ve discussed xwOBA before, breaking down the definition in a prior article. It’s evaluating the quality of contact off the bat. That’s who we want to target, and Machado has the best xwOBA against Yamamoto at .749 (absurdly good).

The average ball off his bat against Yamamoto is 103.5 degrees at a 30-degree launch angle. A “Barrell” is a batted ball with an exit velocity of over 98 MPH at a launch angle between 26 and 30 degrees. The average ball off Machado’s bat is a barrel against Yamamoto. No other Padres player can say that.

In 93 games in his career against the Dodgers, he has 23 home runs and 11 doubles. Against the Dodgers this season, he’s averaging 1.93 bases per game and has gone over this line in 45% of games. The price they put out for Machado seems to be the median price when, in reality, he has a better matchup than average.

The Picks: Manny Machado Over 1.5 Bases (+125) Risk 1 Unit, Manny Machado Home Run (+400) $10 Promo sprinkle.

For my next pick, we are looking at a player on the Dodgers who gets a different PR than Ohtani, Betts, or Freeman but has been as productive as them during this series and has routinely delivered the big hit. I also thought he supplied the best ABs against Darvish when the Dodgers faced him. None of the Dodgers’ overall numbers against Darvish are good, so I’ll roll with the hottest Dodger bat in this one to drive in the top of the lineup.

Teoscar Hernandez has been over this line in nine of his last ten games. Yeah, you read that correctly. Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman are all awesome, but Hernandez is the hottest hitter in the Dodgers lineup. He’s posted a .945 OPS this series while hitting .333. He’s the only Dodgers player to have a hit in every single game of this series, and when his team was down 6-1, he hit the grand slam to get them back in it. He averages 2.25 Hits/Runs/RBI’s per game during the regular season, going over this line in 55% of games.

Against the Padres this season, he’s been over this line in 12 of 21 games (57%), including every game this series. Darvish dominated this Dodgers squad, but Teoscar still got a hit and scored a run against Darvish, the only one in the lineup who can say that. He’s coming off a 2-5 game and is putting up consistently great at-bats.

We also want to target Teoscar when he’s at Dodger Stadium. At home this season, he put up a .885 OPS compared to a .800 OPS on the road. That’s the third-highest OPS at home on the team outside of Shohei Ohtani and Max Muncy. Muncy is worth a look in the props market; he’s my third favorite choice in this game.

I expect there to be ducks on the pond for Teoscar to drive them in, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he got this in one swing.