The Tampa Bay Rays roll into Comerica Park tonight riding one of the best records in the American League, and they’re sending one of the game’s most underrated arms to the mound to try to keep it that way. Drew Rasmussen (13-5, 3.01 ERA) squares off against Framber Valdez (8-8, 4.35 ERA) and the Detroit Tigers at 6:40 p.m. ET, and if you’re new to same game parlays, this matchup is about as clean a teaching example as you’ll find all week.

A same game parlay, or SGP, just means combining multiple bets from a single game into one ticket. Every leg has to hit for the parlay to cash, which makes the payout bigger than a straight bet — but it also means you want each leg to be something you can actually explain in one sentence. Here’s a four-leg build for Rays-Tigers that does exactly that, with the Rays currently favored at -134 on the moneyline and the total sitting at 7.5 runs.

Leg 1: Drew Rasmussen Over His Strikeout Line

Start with the best player in the game. Rasmussen has been terrific all season, sitting at 13-5 with a 3.01 ERA and a tidy 0.95 WHIP across 134.1 innings. He’s struck out 138 batters against just 25 walks, a nearly 6-to-1 ratio that tells you he’s not just missing bats, he’s doing it with control.

Detroit’s lineup strikes out at a solid clip and doesn’t feature a ton of thump against right-handed pitching outside of a few names, which plays right into Rasmussen’s strengths. Books have hung his strikeout total around 4.5 for the night, and given he’s averaging north of nine strikeouts per nine innings, the over is the more logical side if he goes his usual five-plus innings.

Leg 2: Junior Caminero to Homer

For beginners, this is what’s called a “prop bet” — a wager on something specific a player does, separate from the final score. Rays third baseman Junior Caminero has been one of the most dangerous power hitters in baseball this year, already sitting on 35 home runs with a .532 slugging percentage. He’s priced at +398 to go deep tonight, which is one of the shorter home run odds on the entire slate.

Valdez has never been a strikeout machine — he’s more of a ground-ball, contact-manager type — and when hitters do make contact against him, sometimes that contact travels. Caminero’s raw power combined with Valdez’s fly-ball tendencies makes this a leg with real upside for the price.

Leg 3: Rays Team Total Over

This is simply a bet on how many runs one team scores, independent of the final result. Tampa Bay’s offense has been clicking, and Valdez comes in with a 4.35 ERA and a bloated 1.40 WHIP, meaning he’s putting a lot of Tigers on base for opposing hitters to drive in. The Rays team total over is a straightforward way to back a good offense against a pitcher who’s had his share of shaky outings this season.

Leg 4: Rays Moneyline

The simplest bet in sports betting: pick the team you think wins. Tampa Bay is favored at roughly -134, and with the far better starting pitcher on the mound and playing on the road against a Tigers team well under .500, backing the Rays to win outright rounds out this parlay as the anchor leg.

The Full Parlay

Put it all together and you’ve got: Drew Rasmussen over his strikeout total, Junior Caminero to homer, the Rays team total to go over, and Tampa Bay on the moneyline. Combined, a four-leg parlay like this typically lands in the range of a solid double-digit-to-one payout depending on your betting calculator and the sportsbook you use — always double check the live number on your app before locking it in, since odds shift right up to first pitch.

The logic behind each leg is simple on purpose: a great pitcher piling up strikeouts, a power hitter with a real shot at the fences, a good offense facing a struggling arm, and the better team winning the game. That’s the entire blueprint for building your first same game parlay — find the pieces that make sense individually, then let them work together.