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MLB PrizePicks Player Predictions: Monday (4/8)

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Tonight, Nestor Cortes faces the 1-9 Miami Marlins as he looks to pad his stats early in the season. Meanwhile, Framber Valdez takes on the Texas Rangers and their pesky lineup, as he looks to strike out more than five batters for the first time this season. And Cody Bellinger will look to keep up his hot start to the season, as he takes on Yu Darvish and the San Diego Padres.

Here are the best PrizePicks plays for Monday, April 8th's MLB games.

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Saturday’s Best MLB PrizePicks Player Predictions

This Season: 7-4-1

Nestor Cortes Under 6.5 strikeouts

This number is so unexpectedly high that it almost feels like oddsmakers know something we don't. Cortes has only struck out seven batters in two starts this season after pitching exactly 5.0 innings in both starts. 

Tonight, he faces the 1-9 Marlins, but the matchup isn't all that great for him. While he should come away with the victory, strikeouts will be hard for Cortes to come by. The Marlins have struck out 84 times in 10 games, and Cortes has only rung up six batters in this lineup in 34 at-bats. Cortes will likely need to pitch seven innings in this game to hit this number. Nothing suggests he will do that.

Framber Valdez Under 5.5 strikeouts

Valdez has struck out five batters in each of his first two starts this season. Tonight, he'll face a lineup that he's very familiar with. Yet, despite the familiarity, Valdez hasn't struck the Rangers' lineup out very much. He's averaging one strikeout for every 4.4 batters he faces. If that rate continues tonight, he'll need to pitch nearly a complete game to hit this number.

The Rangers are also tied for the fifth-fewest strikeouts in the league. They have just 69 in nine games. They're not a great matchup for anyone right now, and since Valdez hasn't struck them out at a high rate throughout his career, there's no reason to expect him to have a great performance tonight.

Cody Bellinger Under 0.5 hits

Bellinger has hit safely in six of his nine games this season. However, he's just 2-of-16 against Darvish in his career. He's struck out in seven of those 16 at-bats, and he only has one extra-base hit.

Bellinger's numbers against the Padres bullpen aren't much better, so once Darvish is pulled from the game, Bellinger's chances of recording a hit don't go up by much. Even though he has three hits in his last two games, this is a tough matchup for Bellinger and the perfect time to fade him.

Make sure to check out our other best bets for Monday:

Phil Wood is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Phil, check out his archive and follow him @Phil_Wood_Jr.

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