Even with the NFL returning, including the Week 1 edition of Monday Night Football tonight, let’s not forget that we still have plenty of MLB to dive into as well!
For this article, we will be providing our favorite MLB player props for tonight, September 9, including the best MLB home run predictions.
Kyle Schwarber Home Run (+250) FanDuel
Tampa Bay Rays vs. Philadelphia Phillies, 6:40 p.m. ET
Schwarber has been red-hot at the plate recently, and he is the type of hitter that you want to keep riding with when he is seeing the ball the way he has been recently.
He leads MLB with five home runs over the last seven days, with the second-most HardHit line-drive + fly-balls (10) and the most balls launched (6). Balls are considered “launched” when hit with an exit velocity that is 100-plus mph off the bat or faster and the launch angle is 20-40 degrees. No other batter even has five of these over the past week.
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While he did not hit a home run in the past two games (which for Schwarber is closer to two weeks), he had two HardHits in each of the two games, with one barrel as well. Overall, he has hit at least one home run in three of his last six game, with six total, as mentioned earlier.
The pitching matchup is admittedly a little bit of an unknown, as the Rays are currently listing Cole Sulser as their opener, with Tyler Alexander as the primary. That means he will most likely get one at-bat against Sulser, and two or three at-bats against Alexander.
Either way, Schwarber should have the advantage. The left-handed Alexander has allowed a HR/9 of 1.90 against LHH specifically, and Schwarber has had a career year against lefties this year.
Francisco Lindor Home Run (+390) FanDuel
New York Mets vs. Toronto Blue Jays, 7:07 p.m. ET
Lindor has been one of the better hitters in the league for the past month, and he has a great opportunity to go yard tonight. While he is not quite as hot as Schwarber over the last seven days, if you look at the past month as opposed to just the last week, things look great for Lindor.
Over the last four weeks, he has hit the second-most HardHit line-drive + fly-balls in MLB (31), with only Shohei Ohtani hitting more than him. He also has the fourth-most balls launched (12) in this same stretch as well.
Against right-handed pitching specifically, which is what he will be facing tonight, he has five home runs, with a 15% barrel rate and 50% HardHit rate. The pitcher for the Blue Jays is Chris Bassitt, who really struggles against left-handed hitters. Since Lindor is a switch-hitter, he will be batting lefty tonight.
In the last two months, Bassitt has a HR/9 of 2.52 against LHH (worst in MLB), with a 9.26% barrel rate (eighth-worst) and 47.50% HardHit rate (worst in MLB). The pitch that has gotten hit up most for Bassitt is his sinker, which also happens to be a pitch that Lindor hits well.
Bassitt throws the sinker 33% of the time against LHH, but has allowed three home runs off of it, and over the past month, Lindor has an absurd 37.50% barrel rate and 85% HardHit rate against sinkers from RHP.
Gunnar Henderson Home Run (+525) Bet365
Baltimore Orioles vs. Boston Red Sox, 7:10 p.m. ET
Henderson is one of the only batters over the past week who can give Schwarber a run for his money in terms of how hot he is at the plate, though Schwarber would still have the nod. Henderson has eight HardHit line-drive+ fly-balls over the past week (fourth-most) and four balls launched (second-most).
While he has not hit a home run in the last two games, he did have one get robbed from him on Saturday night, when he crushed a 4-seamer 394 feet that was 100.9 mph off the bat. But the outfielder managed to out-jump the fence and rob Henderson of a home run.
This is another situation where the batter-pitcher matchup should favor the batter. Brayan Bello is pitching for the Red Sox, and this is a matchup that Henderson has dominated in the past. This year alone, Henderson has hit a home run and a double off Bello, and Bello has struggled against lefties on the year as well.
He has allowed 19 home runs on the year, 13 of which have come to LHH, with a HR/9 of 1.63. He has not been any better recently, either, with a HR/9 of exactly 1.63 against lefties over the past two months. Henderson stays hot tonight.
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