After last night's festivities were rained out in Philadelphia, we get a beautiful night of baseball for Game 3 of the World Series. The series comes to the City of Brotherly Love tied at 1-1, with the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies splitting the first two games.
Labeled by MLB odds as slight underdogs, can the Phillies offense keep a hot postseason going? Find that out and more in my MLB betting player prop picks for the Astros vs. the Phillies.
Astros vs Phillies prop picks
- Maldonado to record a hit (+125)
- McCullers Jr. Over 4.5 hits allowed (-115)
- Schwarber Over 1.5 TB (+145)
Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.
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Astros vs Phillies Game 3 props
Maldonado has value
The most significant value among my prop projections tonight can be found on Martin Maldonado to get a hit. I have this priced at -130, and as of publication, you can find it for +125 on DraftKings.
The Phillies caught a massive break in pitching when last night's rain delay enabled them to get Ranger Suarez on the mound tonight. With that said, Maldonado matches up pretty well with him. Maldonado hasn't been a great fastball hitter this season, but his historical numbers suggest he's better than what we've seen this season.
That pitch has been rough for Suarez, so much so that he's not going to throw it to the high-end power hitters for the Astros. That opens up opportunities for Maldonado by Suarez simply throwing a "get me over" pitch and Maldonado hitting them. He's benefited from that exact scenario this season, going 1-for-2 against him with both balls put into play being very hard hit and also being of the fastball variety.
Beyond the specifics, Maldonado has made a ton of clutch hits this postseason. I can't pass up a number on a guy like this. While he's only hitting .200 this postseason, he's only gone back-to-back games without a hit once. He comes onto this one off a 0-for-3 showing in his last outing in Game 2, so I'll take my chances.
Martin Maldonado Prop: To record a hit (+125 at DraftKings)
McCullers Jr. gets McClobbered
Both pitchers strike me as vulnerable. So I'll target them in various ways with that in mind. One of my favorite ways of doing that is taking the Over in hits allowed for Lance McCullers Jr.
He last faced this Phillies team just a month ago and gave up six hits. It was the second straight start that he had given up six hits and one that he followed up with a strong performance against the Seattle Mariners.
But the more pressing matchup is the one that followed against the New York Yankees. He gave up eight hits and four earned runs in that ALCS matchup. But, again, he was blasted, and there are plenty of eerily similarities to this matchup.
In that game, the Yankees were home in a raucous environment where they needed a win to extend the series. The Phillies don't have to win to advance things here, but this series could be at a turning point depending on the outcome. Conditions for McCullers won't be ideal, and he's already folded once in a similar climate. This guy has started a Game 7 in the World Series before. Yet, recent history matters, and it's at least something to think about here.
More importantly, the Yankees share a lot of analytical hit numbers with the Phillies. Both ranked in the Top 7 of hard-hit rate, exit velocity, and barrel rate. Both are great low-ball hitters, which has given McCullers issues.
I'm sticking with my pre-playoff belief that the Phillies will continue to have positive offensive regression. We've seen it throughout the postseason: they just came off one of the worst offensive showings thus far with two runs, and I don't expect it to happen a second time — especially at home.
Lance McCullers Jr. Prop: Over 4.5 hits (+115 at DraftKings)
Schwarber city
We're going to keep things simple for our last prop. The sinker is a trouble pitch for McCullers. In 44 PAs, teams have hit over .400 against it and posted a -6 run value this season. So we'll take one of the best sinker hitters on the Phillies' roster and try to capitalize on this.
Kyle Schwarber is that guy for me. Not only do we have the angle of potentially cashing his bases over with a long ball, but we also have one of the best runners on the Phillies team.
He hits the sinker quite well. He has the second-best run value of any Philadelphia player against it and the highest hard-hit rate. I'm not going to overcomplicate it. He'll find one of those sinkers and serve it up for an extra-base hit. My projections price this as around +100 or a coin flip. That makes it one of the best values in the entire game tonight.
Kyle Schwarber Prop: Over 1.5 total bases (+145 at FanDuel)
