We have a Game 7 on Monday night in the ALCS between the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays. It has been an incredibly fun series, with the Mariners winning the first two, then the Blue Jays taking Games 3-4, before the Mariners and Blue Jays traded wins in Games 5 and 6, respectively. Now, the Blue Jays host Game 7 with a chance to go to the World Series to face the Los Angeles Dodgers.
George Kirby is on the mound for the Mariners, with Shane Bieber pitching for the Blue Jays. This is a matchup we saw in Game 3 of this series, with Bieber pitching a fantastic six innings and striking out eight batters while only allowing two earned runs. Things did not go well for Kirby, however, as he gave up a whopping eight earned runs in four innings pitched. He gave up eight hits and three home runs in that start.
Obviously, the Mariners are going to need a better start out of Kirby if they want to win tonight, while the Blue Jays are hoping to get something similar out of Bieber. The Blue Jays are decent favorites here, best offered at -130 on the moneyline at FanDuel. First pitch is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET, with Fox on the call. Below, we will detail our favorite Mariners-Blue Jays odds and picks. Use MLB betting bonuses on FanDuel and DraftKings for these wagers.
Backing starting pitcher strikeout props is scary in a Game 7 when the pitchers have a short leash and is even scarier backing a pitcher that just got rocked in their last start against this same team. That said, even in that Game 3 start against the Blue Jays where Kirby got lit up, he still managed to record four strikeouts. That game was about as worst-case scenario as it gets, and even then, he was able to go over this number.
That now makes it three straight starts in the playoffs in which Kirby went over this number, with eight Ks in his first start against the Tigers, six Ks in his second one, and then the four strikeouts last week against the Blue Jays. Kirby has good strikeout stuff, so even if he only manages to go four innings today, it would not be a surprise to see him reach four strikeouts in that low inning total.
Through three playoff starts, Kirby has a K/9 of 11.57 and a strikeout rate of 29%, both of which would have been among the league leaders in the MLB regular season if extrapolated out. So, even though the Blue Jays are a low strikeout team, four strikeouts for +120 odds is too good to pass up on for Kirby.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been on an absolute roll these entire playoffs, and he is worth a sprinkle to go yard once again tonight. Through 10 postseason games this year, he has hit an absurd six home runs in those 10 games. He has an ISO rate of .538, 1.000 slugging and 1.532 OPS. That would be the best slugging and OPS of all playoff hitters, and the second-best ISO rate.
He has shown no signs of slowing down either, as he hit another home run in Game 6, adding two HardHits total last night. That includes the hardest hit of the entire game, which was not the ball that went yard but instead was a force out with too low of a launch angle to be any threat, but still left the bat at 116 mph exit velocity.
This is also a batter vs. pitcher matchup that was dominated by Guerrero Jr. in Game 3. In two at-bats against each other, Guerrero Jr. hit one home run that traveled 406 feet and was 106.4 mph off the bat and had another double that was 104.9 mph EV. Playing in the comforts of his home stadium tonight, he goes clears another fence.