When it comes to betting on MLB futures market, one data point usually doesn’t move the needle in a sample size that spans six months and 162 games in total.

When it’s the first game of the season, though? It tends to carry a little extra weight.

That’s certainly the case in the Cy Young market, where one starts can portend a stellar campaign for some of baseball’s best hurlers.

Of course, the likes of Gerrit Cole and Dylan Cease — two of the favorites to win MLB’s most coveted pitching award — were sharp over the weekend, but what about the unsung starters who showed out in their season debut?

Here are three long shots who turned heads in MLB’s opening weekend and could be worth betting in this year’s Cy Young market, with odds courtesy of BetMGM:

Lodolo was already a sneaky candidate to win NL Cy Young after an intriguing 2022 season, when he finished sixth in Rookie of the Year voting and showed the ability to miss bats despite some shaky command at times.

He was locked in on Saturday, striking out nine Pirates across five innings while allowing two runs and two walks.

Most impressively, he coaxed a career-high 22 whiffs in his debut, and his 38.2 percent called strikes + whiff rate ranked fifth among all starters over the weekend.

Lodolo has long had elite strikeout potential dating back to his minor league days, and he settled in late last year with a 2.48 ERA with 49 strikeouts in just 36¹/₃ innings over his final six starts.

If Saturday is any indication, that looks like the pitcher we’ll see in 2023.

You almost couldn’t come across a sleepers list heading into this season that didn’t include Springs, who impressed with a 2.46 ERA in 25 starts last year but didn’t show the swing-and-miss potential he teased in his previous two years as a reliever.

It sure looks as if he’s putting it all together in 2023.

The Rays starter fanned 12 batters through six no-hit innings on Sunday, allowing just one Tigers base runner and finishing with a negative FIP (-0.28).

He threw a first-pitch strike on 18 of 19 at-bats (94.7 percent) and ended with a 63.2 percent strikeout rate, both the best of any pitcher over the weekend.

Springs’ changeup, which helped key his breakout season in 2022, generated nine whiffs alone in Sunday’s start.

It may feel like a small sample size, but the underlying metrics suggest Springs isn’t just a one-start wonder.

Springs also enjoyed a ton of hype this summer after a strong second half to 2022, when he posted a 0.98 ERA over his final seven starts.

And it looks as if he hasn’t skipped a beat in 2023.

The third-year lefty dominated the Brewers in Saturday’s debut, tossing six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts and just one walk.

His strong start had him ranked seventh in SIERA (1.36) and eighth in fWAR (0.3) — just ahead of Lodolo and Cy Young dark horse Kevin Gausman.

Clearly, it’s a small sample, but Steele has special stuff and deserves a better price than this after showcasing it in his first start of the year.

Steele is well worth a wager at such long odds with the NL Cy Young race so wide open.