One more day until NFL takes over for everyone, but as a reminder we will have MLB content every day except for Sunday’s the rest of the season, although the final weekend of the MLB season is one where I will recommend taking off.
Tonight’s slate also has no PPD weather issues to monitor and so we can just skip over any mention of weather although it is very humid up in New York/Boston.
Frankie Montas
Montas lives and dies off the downward sinking action and while the White Sox are a known good fast ball hitting team, they have a couple guys who haven’t been historically dominant vs down in the zone action. Montas saw them back on August 16th in Chicago and in that start he had a 38.1% Outside Zone swing rate and had a 34% swinging strike rate on his splitter. Montas generally is going to give you 100 pitches and is fairly reliable in friendly Oakland Coliseum.
Vladimir Gutierrez
After finally having two poor starts in a row Gutierrez should rebound tonight against the Cubs lineup which finally cooled off the last two days. Gutierrez has a 25%+ strikeout rate against their top 6 hitters and should be able to avoid long innings tonight as the Cubs lineup projects with just a low .289 xWOBA against his array of pitches.
Alek Manoah
The Yankees are a ticking time bomb, but Manoah was dominant against them in his debut although he did have shadows helping him in that game. None the less, with how cold the Yankees have gone it’s worth taking the risk because his upside could be a 9 strikeout performance today.
Atlanta Braves
Remember that game last year when the Braves scored like 28 runs and everyone wanted them to win 28-3? Well, tonight kind of feels like that night. The Nationals are just going through any minor leaguer they can find in their system to pitch out of the pen right now and they’ll start with Sean Nolin making his 5th start of the season — not that the first four have been good. Nolin in his 12 innings pitched away from DC has given up 9 ER and 4 HR, which are likely leading into a spot where Duvall, d’Arnaud, Soler, Albies all have field days tee’ing off on the south-paw who most certainly is also giving up a double to Freddie Freeman tonight. Remember him? Yeah, it’s time for Freddie to have a big game.
Kansas City Royals
Salvy, Mondesi, Whit
If you don’t like it you can keep scrolling on, but give this team enough AB and surely they will come through. It’s Matt Harvey who dominated KC earlier this season in Kauffman stadium but is once again a target when pitching in Camden Yards.
CATCHER
- Salvador Perez
- Travis d’Arnaud
FIRST BASE
- Freddie Freeman
- Joey Votto
- Josh Bell
SECOND BASE
- Ozzie Albies
- Whit Merrifield
- Brandon Lowe
THIRD BASE
- Austin Riley
- Eduardo Escobar
SHORTSTOP
Honestly everyone here is a negative grade outside of Mondesi for me. So let’s just move on because we have a Mondesi quota to hit and not many days left people!! No, seriously, it’s him or something weird like Ronald Torreyes
- Adalberto Mondesi
- Ronald Torreyes
OUTFIELD – Tier 1
- Jorge Soler
- Adam Duvall
- Mark Canha
- Austin Hays
- Jorge Soler – OF – Braves – Chairman of the Dongers Club
- Ozzie Albies – 2B – Braves
- Travis d’Arnaud – C – Braves
- Josh Bell – 1B – Nationals
- Adalberto Mondesi – SS – Royals
- Adam Duvall – OF – Braves
- Austin Hays – OF – Orioles
- BONUS ……….. Andrew Benintendi – OF – Royals
BETS
- Royals/Orioles OVER 10
- Braves/Nationals OVER 9.5
TONIGHT’S CHALK
No Coors Field tonight helps spread the chalk out. Atlanta is a popular play but I think the Red Sox/Rays being high scoring lately gets some ownership along with Kansas City and Cincinnati
GOOD TEAMS GETTING OVERLOOKED
None, but Atlanta’s explosion potential gets downplayed too much tonight.