The ALDS slate on October 5 is loaded with swing-and-miss stuff, and that makes it a great day to lean into strikeout props instead of guessing at run totals. Three starters taking the mound today have swing-and-miss profiles that line up cleanly against what’s sitting across the betting window, and in each case, the gap between the player’s actual season-long performance and the number the books have posted is wide enough to feel like real value rather than a coin flip.

Here’s the breakdown on three strikeout plays worth looking at for today’s ALDS Game 2 action, with the stats and matchup context that back each one up.

Gavin Williams Has Owned the White Sox All Year

Gavin Williams takes the mound for Cleveland in Game 2 of the ALDS against Chicago on Monday at 5:00 p.m. ET, and the number to target is the over on 7.5 strikeouts, currently priced between -124 and -128 depending on the book. Williams put together a 14-8 season with a 3.76 ERA, piling up 248 strikeouts across 184.1 innings — a strikeout rate of 7.8 per game that ranks him among the more dominant swing-and-miss arms in the league this year.

What makes this particular matchup attractive isn’t just his season-long numbers — it’s his specific history against this White Sox lineup. Chicago finished the regular season 26th in MLB in strikeouts per game while posting the fifth-highest strikeout rate in the league at 24.1 percent, a combination that tells you this offense swings and misses even against pitchers who aren’t overpowering. Williams isn’t just any arm; he grades out in the 94th percentile in whiff rate and the 97th percentile in strikeout percentage leaguewide.

He’s faced the White Sox four times this season and has never finished with fewer than six strikeouts in any of those starts, picking up eight on one occasion. Across his full season, Williams cleared eight-plus strikeouts in 15 of his 32 outings. Against a lineup this prone to chasing, clearing 7.5 feels like the floor, not the ceiling.

Cam Schlittler Is Pitching Like the Best Arm Left in October

In the nightcap, Cam Schlittler gets the ball for the Yankees against Tampa Bay at 8:00 p.m. ET, and the over on 6.5 strikeouts (-146) is the number to attack. Schlittler finished the regular season 14-6 with a 1.95 ERA and 239 strikeouts in 193.2 innings — a 7.2 K/game average that puts him firmly in the AL Cy Young conversation, and his postseason debut did nothing to cool that down. He opened the ALDS with 10 strikeouts over 6.1 innings in a start where he didn’t allow a run.

The matchup context only strengthens the case. Schlittler has already faced Tampa Bay once this season and posted eight innings with just one run allowed, showing he already has a blueprint for this specific lineup. The Rays’ offense has struggled to generate much traffic against power arms in October so far, and Schlittler brings exactly that kind of stuff — elite velocity paired with a strikeout rate that’s held up deep into starts all year.

Freddy Peralta, his counterpart on the mound for Tampa Bay, is excellent in his own right, but this isn’t about Peralta — it’s about whether Schlittler can clear a total that sits a full strikeout below his season average. Given his track record against this exact opponent and the form he showed in his first playoff start, 6.5 looks beatable.

Fade Freddy Peralta’s Strikeout Total in the Same Game

The flip side of that Yankees-Rays matchup is Freddy Peralta’s own strikeout total, and the smart side here is the under on 5.5 Ks, priced at -164. Peralta finished the season 10-11 with a 4.42 ERA and 156 strikeouts across 169.0 innings, a 4.9 K/game average that’s noticeably lower than both Williams and Schlittler on this same slate — a meaningful signal about how often he’s missing bats late into the year.

Context matters here, too: Peralta is walking into a lineup that includes Cody Bellinger, Ben Rice, and Trent Grisham, a Yankees offense that doesn’t chase as aggressively as the White Sox and has shown the patience to work counts rather than swing through strikeout stuff. Pair that with a strikeout rate that’s already shy of six per start on the year, and the under on 5.5 lines up as the more disciplined side of this particular prop.

It’s also worth noting the full-game context: oddsmakers have the Yankees-Rays total sitting at just 6.5 runs, a sign that both pitching staffs are expected to limit damage — but limiting runs and racking up strikeouts aren’t the same skill, and Peralta’s season-long numbers suggest he does more of the former than the latter.

Lock These In

Three strikeout-driven ALDS plays worth having on your card for Monday’s slate, each backed by real matchup history and season-long performance data rather than a hunch.

All three center on a simple idea: bet the pitcher whose season-long strikeout rate clearly separates from the number on the board, in either direction. If you want to track how these lines move before first pitch, check the live MLB odds page for the latest numbers from every major book.