Rays vs. Blue Jays prop bets: Fade Berrios against Tampa’s terrifying offence

The unbeaten Tampa Bay Rays come to Rogers Centre on Friday to open a series against the Toronto Blue Jays.

The pregame narrative: Blue Jays starter Jose Berrios is struggling to open the season, and now he’s about to run into a buzzsaw otherwise known as the Rays’ offence. We’re fading his outs prop while tailing a pair of Rays hitters — Wander Franco and Randy Arozarena — on plus-money markets.

Here are our Rays vs. Blue Jays prop bets for the April 14 matchup at Rogers Centre.

MLB odds as of 10:40 a.m. ET on 04/14/23.

Best Bet: Berrios under 17.5 outs (-106)

For as rough of a season as Berrios posted in 2022, he still managed to work deep into a fair number of games.

Despite pitching to a career-worst 5.23 ERA, Berrios still managed to exceed this line in just over half of his outings (17 of 32).

His average outs per start, though, was only 16.1. And given the team he’s facing tonight, it’s fair to think he’ll be chased early.

No matter which way you slice it, Tampa has the league’s top offence right now. The Rays lead in all three slash line categories (.287/.364/.576), as well as wRC+ (162) and runs per game (7.8).

In 13.1 innings against Berrios last season, they scored 10 runs on 21 hits.

Toronto’s stoic right-hander is still looking to right the ship. His first two outings of this season lasted 5.2 and 4.0 innings, respectively. Simply put, this isn’t a great bounce-back spot.

Key stat: Last year, Berrios fell under this outs total in two of three starts against the Rays.

Quick picks

Franco over 1.5 bases (+112): Tampa’s shortstop has been rising up the AL MVP odds leaderboard thanks to an excellent start at the plate.

He’s cleared this line eight times in 13 games, posting a 1.048 OPS so far this season.

When Franco swings, he usually connects. He owns a 91st-percentile whiff rate, per Baseball Savant, and we hope he’ll keep swinging away tonight.

Arozarena over 0.5 RBIs (+175): Batting from either the No. 3 or 4 spot in the Rays’ order, Arozarena has really been cleaning up.

The outfielder has 16 RBIs in 13 games, cashing on this prop nine times. That includes a three-run blast on Wednesday as part of a four-RBI night against the Red Sox.

It doesn’t hurt that Arozarena has a solid line against Berrios — 4-for-8 with a double.