Hunter Brown has shown to be the ace of the Houston staff so far this year, pitching to an ERA under two and a 5-1 record. Tonight against the Reds, I'm backing him on the strikeout ladder in my article for 1u, located in the analysis tab on the SL website! If you don't play ladders, I would take a 0.5u unit position on the over 6.5. My take is I want to tap into the strikeout upside so I played the full ladder for 1u.

DraftKings. Hunter Brown has vaulted to the front of the AL Cy Young race: pitching to a 1.67 ERA, he’s racked up 49 strikeouts in 43 innings (clearing this total in 5/7 starts). He now gets the Reds who have a 23.7% K% versus righties in away games, and own the sixth highest called plus swinging strike rate as a team. Facing a righty in an away game coming off travel, the Reds have struggled: Logan Webb pitched 7 scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts, Max Meyer had 14 strikeouts over 6 scoreless frames, and AJ Smith-Shawver just carved the Reds up for 8 shutout innings with 5 punch-outs. I’d bet this up to -155.

The Reds often can't hit and their bullpen is once again trash -- sadly, I know both of these facts painfully well; the Reds are my Godfather III: "Every time, I think I'm out, they pull me back in" as a bettor -- so while I'm definitely not a big Houston guy this year, we like Hunter Brown (5-1, 1.67 ERA). He's among the AL Cy Young favorites at +550. Added bonus: The Stros were off Thursday, while the Reds were playing extras in Atlanta before traveling. Naturally, the bullpen blew that one.