Another home run filled exciting day yesterday as we continue to see a boost in offense and some guys are absolutely on fire. Specifically, Giancarlo Stanton, who I outlined on Monday was a must start in PETCO and that’s a great reason why you should be reading this every day to pick up nuggets to continue forward. Ballpark splits matter!
Another four games today and if you want more Baseball like me, then you should root for the Athletics to win today to keep their series going into tomorrow. Let’s go game by game again today to help win in DFS and in our betting plays.
Miami (Lopez) vs Atlanta (Anderson)
Two good young pitchers take to the hill today and I would be shocked if Ian Anderson is not a chalky play against a Marlins lineup which is RH heavy. But there is a must play on the Marlins and that is Corey Dickerson, who should be leading off if the Marlins know what they are doing and has a crazy .850+ SLG % in his career at Minute Maid Park. Dickerson, a former Tampa Ray for a while knows the AL park well and absolutely destroys Curve Balls, which has been Anderson’s weakness. If Anderson is off with his control early we can see a 3-1 pitch get taken out to right field by Dickerson. Beyond that however, I love this spot for Anderson and project him to be one of the top 3 pitchers on the day.
Best Bet: Marlins to score first
Stack: Braves (Freeman-Ozuna core)
One off: Corey Dickerson
Better Pitcher: Ian Anderson
Oakland (Luzardo) vs Houston (Urquidy)
The fact that Oakland might let Houston sweep them without having to use Greinke in Dodger Stadium is crazy. But Oakland for some reason rolled out Sean Manaea yesterday and put themselves in a hole. Today they turn to their most talented, but still inconsistent, pitcher in Jesus Luzardo. Another warm afternoon game in Dodger Stadium makes it hard to trust either pitcher but I do like both for the high reward of a ton of strikeouts.
Houston is smashing everything and George Springer once again looks like an elite play. I’ll prefer to just go with some one offs here from Houston and he along with Carlos Correa are my favorite Houston bats today. But the better stack upside is on Oakland. They get to be the road team today which secures a 9th inning and the back end of this Houston bullpen is going to start to show signs of breaking down as their weakness. I like Oakland to win in a comeback today and nobody will look at Olson in LvL but the Hard Hit % splits for him against Urquidy are very good.
Best Bet: Over 9 runs & Athletics (+108)
Stack: Athletics (Semien, Olson, Piscotty)
One off: George Springer
Better Pitcher: Neither
Tampa (Morton) vs New York (Tanaka)
Two veteran pitchers who if they are on an completely dominate the other team. There will be no less than three home runs in this game for sure with near 80% humidity and obviously any game with the Yankees should feature home run totals north of 1 right now. But so long as we don’t see the two managers competing for the “Worlds worst over Manager of the year” award, I would project both pitchers to go as long as they can which in a short four game playoff slate is the most important factor.
If you can get ground balls in PETCO, you will be a winning pitcher and Charlie Morton historically has been a very good ground ball pitcher at near 50% but this season he had his lowest rate of the year. If he can correct that in a spot where shadows might come into play I love him to get through five against New York, which is something he couldn’t do twice this season mostly due to injuries in both outings (I was on him the first time when he left with a shoulder issue). Tanaka on the other hand is a no brainer lock button play for me today. I’ll be taking every Tanaka prop bet over there is today.
Best Bet: Tanaka strikeout prop bet OVER
Stack: None
One off: Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks
Better Pitcher: Tanaka
San Diego (TBD) vs Dodgers (Kershaw)
For all the moves that the Padres made at the deadline and all the hype surrounding this team, they sure are clueless when it comes to their starting rotation right now. Clevinger went out last night and clearly was not right before leaving once again due to injury. They need to put him on the shelf and just accept that they’ll need to string together a series with as many pitchers as possible. So this clearly makes any starter that the Padres roll out in my mind irrelevant because they’re most likely not going to go deep. So we’ll be playing Dodger DFS roullette today with regards to hitting and yeah, I’ll be a sucker for the Dodgers top player on his birthday and that would be Mookie Betts.
The big question here is which Clayton Kershaw shows up. The one who put some playoff demons to rest in the first round against a really soft Milwaukee lineup or the one who once he gets to the 6th inning is going to be serving up doubles and homers and a five spot to the Padres. I love San Diego to win the game, I just don’t know how much Wil Myers I can really stomach here at $4500 when Thomas Pham is only $3200 on DraftKings. If Pham is in the lineup he is the play, but you’ll have to be smart about your lineup construction to allow for late swapping of players as this is the final game of the day.
Best Bet: Line has not been posted due to Padres not announcing pitcher yet, but I would look at Padres side when it does post.
Stack: Padres (Tatis, Pham, Myers)
One off: Mookie Betts, Justin Turner
Better Pitcher: Kershaw barely
DFS Plays
Pitchers (ranked)
- Tanaka
- Anderson
- Morton
Stacks (ranked)
- Braves
- Athletics
- Padres
- Yankees (for homers)
Top one off batters
C: Austin Nola
1B: Matt Olson
2B: Ozzie Albies
3B: Alex Bregman
SS: Marcus Semien
OF: George Springer, Corey Dickerson, Thomas Pham
Chairman of the Dongers Club: Corey Dickerson – So if you are on DraftKings and picking two pitchers you will be tempted to not want to use Anderson & Dickerson together today and I understand that — but
Game Predictions
- Braves & Over
- Athletics & Over
- Yankees & Under
- Padres