Every NRFI is really two separate bets stapled together, one on each half of the inning, and the reason this one is the pick of the day is that one of those halves might be the safest first-inning proposition on the whole slate. Nick Martinez against the Toronto Blue Jays' first inning is a strength-on-weakness matchup with almost no argument on the other side. Martinez has opened 18 starts this season and put up a zero in 16 of them. The two exceptions were single runs, one to Detroit on June 3 and one to Arizona on June 26, which is how a man compiles a 1.00 first-inning ERA across a full half season. And the lineup he faces tonight has scored a first-inning run in 23 of its 99 games, a 23.2 percent rate, with 40 first-inning runs all year, an average of 0.40 per game.
Cease owns the half of the inning where this bet earns its price. Dylan Cease is having a brilliant season, a 2.56 ERA with a .190 average against and 148 strikeouts in 98.1 innings, a 13.55 per-nine rate, and he arrives in the best form of that season: 7 scoreless innings against Seattle on July 3, then 8 scoreless one-hit innings with 11 strikeouts against San Francisco on July 8, both with clean first innings. But his opening frame has been his messiest inning all year, a 3.18 first-inning ERA with 10 walks in 17 first innings, and it faces the more dangerous early lineup in this game. That tension is the whole bet, and we will lay it out honestly rather than pretend the -134 is free money.
Graded, July 20 final: The NRFI cashed. Nick Martinez and Dylan Cease both worked a scoreless opening frame at Rogers Centre and the first inning finished 0-0, settling the first-inning Under 0.5 at -134 as a winner for +1.12 units. Martinez is now clean in 17 of 19 first innings. The rest of the night went the other way in a hurry: Tampa Bay won 7-1, which buried the Rays at Blue Jays Under 7.5 at eight total runs, and the eight-pick card finished 3-5 for -4.73 units. Brewers moneyline at -190 won as Milwaukee beat the Mets 8-3 and the Rangers Team Total Under 4.5 at -140 won with Texas held to 3 in a 10-3 loss to the White Sox. The losses: Rockies moneyline at +107 (Washington 7, Colorado 3), Twins at Guardians Under 7.5 at -110 (17 runs in a 13-4 Cleveland win), Diamondbacks moneyline at -154 (Athletics 5, Arizona 2), and Red Sox Team Total Under 4.5 at -130 (Boston scored 6 in a 6-5 win over Baltimore). The first-inning read was the best call on the card and the only one that survived the night. Every result confirmed against the official box scores.
Nick Martinez: Two First-Inning Runs In Four Months
Martinez's season is quietly one of the best run-prevention campaigns in the American League, an 8-2 record with a 2.65 ERA and a 1.12 WHIP across 18 starts for a 56-42 Tampa Bay club, and the first inning is where his particular style pays its biggest dividend. Early runs are built on free baserunners, the leadoff walk that turns a single into a rally, and Martinez simply does not issue them. He has walked 19 hitters in 105.1 innings this season, a 1.62 per-nine rate, and just 4 of them in his 18 first innings. Add a .185 first-inning average against and a 0.89 first-inning WHIP with 13 strikeouts in the frame, and you have a pitcher whose opening act is command, quick contact, and the dugout.
Two more details sharpen the read. First, he has already run this exact experiment: Martinez started against this Toronto lineup on May 4 and threw a clean first inning. Second, this is not a new lean for us. His start on July 10 anchored our Mariners at Rays NRFI at -113, which cashed when both sides posted zeros, and his profile has only firmed since, with clean firsts in seven straight starts since the Arizona blemish on June 26.
Dylan Cease: The Ace With A First-Inning Habit
Cease is the half of this bet that requires honesty. The season line is filthy, a 2.56 ERA with 148 strikeouts in 98.1 innings and a .190 average against, but his first inning has run hotter than everything that follows it: a 3.18 first-inning ERA on 7 runs across his 17 opening frames, with 15 hits, a .231 average against, and the real culprit, 10 walks. Nearly a quarter of his 44 season walks have come in the first inning alone, and a 1.47 first-inning WHIP is how a strikeout monster ends up with only 10 clean firsts in 17 tries. From late May through late June the habit got loud: a first-inning run in five of six starts between May 24 and June 27.
What justifies laying the price anyway is that the version of Cease who showed up in July looks nothing like that stretch. Seven scoreless against Seattle on July 3 with 9 strikeouts and a single walk. Eight scoreless against San Francisco on July 8, one hit, 11 strikeouts. Fifteen straight zeros, 20 strikeouts, clean first innings in both, and the fastball-slider combination that struck out 27 hitters in his 17 first innings has always given him the weapon to strand whatever traffic he creates. He also threw a clean first against this same Tampa Bay lineup on May 13. The walks are the risk. The stuff is the out.
The Lineup Halves: Toronto Sleeps Early, Tampa Bay Does Not
Nobody is watching the cleanest part of this bet. Toronto's first-inning offense has been among the quietest in the sport all season: a first-inning run in just 23 of 99 games played, a 23.2 percent rate, 40 total first-inning runs, 0.40 per game. That is the downstream product of a lineup hitting .242 with a .687 OPS on the year, numbers that sit near the bottom of the league, from a 46-53 club that has spent the season searching for offense. Pointing baseball's stingiest first-inning arm at that lineup is the anchor of the whole play.
Tampa Bay's half is the live one, and it deserves plain numbers rather than hand-waving. The Rays have scored a first-inning run in 34 of 98 games, 34.7 percent, with 51 first-inning runs, and their season line of .257 with a .731 OPS makes them the better offense in this game by a clear margin. That is the lineup Cease's first-inning walks will be facing, and it is the single most likely way this ticket loses. The counterweight is that the current version of Cease has not allowed a run of any kind since June 27, and the fastball-slider combination behind his 13.55 strikeouts per nine is exactly the profile that ends a first inning three hitters after it starts.
| First-Inning Profile, 2026 | Nick Martinez (TB) | Dylan Cease (TOR) |
|---|---|---|
| First-inning ERA | 1.00 | 3.18 |
| First innings thrown | 18 | 17 |
| First-inning runs allowed | 2 | 7 |
| Scoreless firsts | 16 of 18 | 10 of 17 |
| First-inning walks | 4 | 10 |
| First-inning strikeouts | 13 | 27 |
| First-inning AVG against | .185 | .231 |
| First-inning WHIP | 0.89 | 1.47 |
| vs tonight's opponent | Clean 1st vs TOR on May 4 | Clean 1st vs TB on May 13 |
The Honest Risk, Stated Plainly
Strip the narrative away and the math is tight. The -134 price needs the inning to stay clean 57.3 percent of the time. Cease's own clean-first rate is 58.8 percent, which covers that bar with almost nothing to spare before Martinez's half even enters the equation, and the lineup he faces scores early more than a third of the time. If you price this game only on Cease's season-long first-inning record, the ticket is close to fair value and no more. The bet's real margin lives in two places: Martinez against Toronto is about as lopsided as a half-inning matchup gets, 88.9 percent clean against a 23.2 percent early-scoring lineup, and the July version of Cease, the one with 15 straight zeros and 20 strikeouts, is a meaningfully better first-inning pitcher than the May version who walked the frame into trouble five starts out of six. If the May version shows up, one leadoff walk and one Rays double beats us, and that is the loss scenario in a single sentence.
The July 20 Strikeout Board: Five Strong Reads, Two Leans
Our model evaluated the full Monday slate across the strikeout and pitcher outs markets, and the strikeout side produced its loudest board in weeks: five strong reads and two leans, every one of them analysis only. The through-line is unders on big names, the model repeatedly finding that the market is paying for reputation strikeouts that recent workloads do not support. The gaps below are the distance between the model's over probability and the market's implied over probability after the market blend.
| Contract | Line & Price | Model Over% | Market Over% | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tanner Bibee (CLE) vs Twins, strikeouts | Under 4.5, -113 | 28.4% | 50.0% | Strong |
| Dylan Cease (TOR) vs Rays, strikeouts | Under 7.5, -140 | 25.2% | 44.9% | Strong |
| Jacob deGrom (TEX) vs White Sox, strikeouts | Under 6.5, +122 | 40.1% | 57.5% | Strong |
| Jacob Misiorowski (MIL) vs Mets, strikeouts | Under 8.5, -104 | 34.3% | 51.9% | Strong |
| George Kirby (SEA) vs Reds, strikeouts | Under 6.5, +110 | 40.9% | 55.1% | Strong |
| Trevor McDonald (SF) at Royals, strikeouts | Over 3.5, +118 | 55.9% | 43.3% | Lean |
| Kyle Leahy (STL) at Angels, strikeouts | Under 4.5, even | 41.1% | 52.9% | Lean |
Two of these deserve a paragraph. The Cease Under 7.5 at -140 sits in the same game as our NRFI, and the two plays do not conflict: the NRFI is a bet on his first fifteen pitches, the strikeout under is a bet on his workload, and a dominant-but-short Cease start satisfies both. It is also the board's most contrarian read, because Cease has averaged 8.7 strikeouts a start this season and just posted lines of 9 and 11, so the model is betting that a 22-point probability gap survives contact with the hottest strikeout arm on the slate. The deGrom Under 6.5 at +122 is the shape we trust most, plus money against a market that implies 57.5 percent on the over while the model sees 40.1, and the Misiorowski Under 8.5 at -104 follows the same logic against a Mets lineup and a young arm whose pitch counts, not his stuff, set his ceiling. The two leans are thinner edges and sized accordingly in the language: McDonald Over 3.5 at +118 is the board's only over, and Leahy Under 4.5 at even money is a coin-flip price the model tilts. All seven are analysis, not tracked picks.
The Day's Card: Eight Picks, 14.5 Units
This NRFI headlines the page, but it is one leg of a full Monday card. Eight picks, 14.5 units, numbers exact as bet: the Rays at Blue Jays NRFI at -134 (1.5u) covered above, Brewers moneyline at -190 (3u), Rockies moneyline at +107 (1.5u), Twins at Guardians Under 7.5 at -110 (1u), Rays at Blue Jays Under 7.5 at -115 (2u), Diamondbacks moneyline at -154 (2.5u), Red Sox Team Total Under 4.5 at -130 (1.5u), and Rangers Team Total Under 4.5 at -140 (1.5u). Note the internal agreement in Toronto: the game Under 7.5 at -115 and the NRFI are the same thesis at two different zoom levels, Martinez's 2.65 ERA and Cease's 2.56 pointing at a quiet night from the very first pitch, and the Rangers Team Total Under rides the same deGrom-adjacent logic the strikeout board landed on from the other direction. Full grading lands on the picks page as always.
How To Approach It
- The pick: Rays at Blue Jays NRFI, first-inning Under 0.5 at -134 on DraftKings, 1.5 units. Rogers Centre, 7:07 PM ET.
- The anchor: Martinez's 1.00 first-inning ERA, 16 clean firsts in 18 starts, and 4 walks in 18 opening frames against a Toronto lineup that scores early in 23.2 percent of games.
- The support: Cease has thrown 15 consecutive scoreless innings with 20 strikeouts, with clean firsts in both starts, and blanked this Rays lineup's first inning on May 13.
- The break-even: -134 needs 57.3 percent. Cease's own 58.8 percent clean-first rate barely clears that alone, which is why Martinez's half is the whole margin.
- The risk: Cease's 10 first-inning walks and Tampa Bay's 34.7 percent first-inning scoring rate. A leadoff walk to the Rays is the loss scenario.
- The strikeout board: five strong reads led by Bibee Under 4.5 (-113) and deGrom Under 6.5 (+122), plus two leans. Analysis only.
- The card: eight picks, 14.5 units, led by Brewers ML (-190) 3u and Diamondbacks ML (-154) 2.5u.
Final Verdict
The best NRFI bets are the ones where you only need one half of the inning to be special, and the other half just has to be normal. Martinez against Toronto is the special half: a pitcher who has allowed two first-inning runs in four months of starts, walking almost nobody, against the lineup least likely in this game to make him pay for anything. Cease only has to be normal, and the July version of him has been far better than normal, fifteen straight scoreless innings with the best swing-and-miss stuff on either roster. The honest ledger says his first-inning walks are real, the Rays' early bats are real, and 57.3 percent is a real bar, which is why this is 1.5 units and not 3. But when the market hangs -134 on a first inning where one side is nearly automatic and the other side is the hottest pitcher in the building, that is a price we lay. Rays at Blue Jays NRFI, -134, 1.5 units, and the first fifteen minutes at Rogers Centre will tell us everything.
FAQ
The pick of the day is the Rays at Blue Jays No Run First Inning (NRFI), taken as the first-inning Under 0.5 runs at -134 on DraftKings for 1.5 units, Rogers Centre, 7:07 PM ET, Nick Martinez opposite Dylan Cease. Martinez owns a 1.00 first-inning ERA with a scoreless first in 16 of 18 starts, Cease has thrown 15 scoreless innings across his last two starts, and Toronto has scored a first-inning run in only 23.2 percent of its games this season.
Because his first inning combines command with quiet contact. Across 18 first innings in 2026 he has allowed 2 runs total for a 1.00 first-inning ERA, held hitters to a .185 average in the frame with a 0.89 WHIP, and walked just 4 batters while striking out 13. His 1.62 walks per nine on the season strangles the free baserunners that early runs are built on, and he threw a clean first against this same Toronto lineup on May 4.
Dylan Cease's first inning and the Tampa Bay bats. Cease's first-inning ERA is 3.18 against his 2.56 season mark, he has walked 10 hitters in 17 first innings, nearly a quarter of his season total, and his clean-first rate of 10 in 17 starts is 58.8 percent, barely above the 57.3 percent the -134 price requires on its own. The Rays have also scored a first-inning run in 34.7 percent of their games, the more dangerous early lineup in this matchup. The bet is that July Cease, 15 scoreless innings with 20 strikeouts, is the real one.
The model board flagged five strong reads and two leans, all analysis only: Tanner Bibee Under 4.5 strikeouts at -113, Dylan Cease Under 7.5 at -140, Jacob deGrom Under 6.5 at +122, Jacob Misiorowski Under 8.5 at -104, and George Kirby Under 6.5 at +110 as strong reads, with Trevor McDonald Over 3.5 at +118 and Kyle Leahy Under 4.5 at even money as leans. The NRFI is the only tracked props-page play, and the day's eight-pick card carries 14.5 units in total.