Rays vs. Yankees: First 5 Team Total Props | July 31, 2025
Written by: Colby Marchio
Last Update: Thu Jul 31, 2025, 4:06 pm ET
Read Time: 3 minutes
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Rays vs. Yankees: Thursday's board opens with a familiar face to fade. Marcus Stroman is back on the mound, and that means opportunity. Tampa Bay has the tools to take advantage early.
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Last Month: 45-103 (-14.8u)
Last Week: 11-28 (-6.9u)
Cold as ICE. FADE ME! Seriously.
Rays vs. Yankees Best Bets – July 31
Can Jonathan Aranda get it going early for the Rays?
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Welcome in! Get ready to kickstart your Thursday — also known as Friday Junior — by fading the living daylights out of Marcus Stroman. We are backing the Rays F5 team total over 2.5 at plus money.
Why are we picking on Stroman? For starters, I have zero respect for his arm and go out of my way to find reasons to fade him. Secondly, the numbers back it up. Over his last five home starts, he owns a 7.11 ERA, 55% hard-hit rate, and 1.9 HR/9. Opposing batters have a .305 xBA, .534 xSLG, and .391 xwOBA.
The 34-year-old right-hander has only one pitch above league average — his splitter — and he only throws it 10% of the time. The rest of his arsenal is well below average, according to FanGraphs.
Tampa Bay gets to feast all afternoon on a below-average pitch mix, while boasting three elite-rated hitters, per Batters-Box. Despite road struggles this season, the Rays are still averaging 2.38 runs in the first five innings away from home. Stroman, through five home starts, is allowing three runs per outing. Overall, through eight starts this season, he is giving up 4.75 hits, 1.8 extra-base hits, and 2.8 runs per game. He has allowed teams to surpass this prop in five of those eight starts.
After last night's tough loss, I fully expect the Rays to come out swinging in the Bronx. At plus money for three runs, this feels like a great price for some afternoon FUN.
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Former D1 (club) baseball player, Colby has been betting since his college days at DePaul, where he had to endure the worst collegiate basketball the Big East has ever seen. He is an advanced analytics nerd and has never seen an underdog he has not liked. Hot. Corn. Bull. It does not matter the dog he loves them all.
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