This is an odd Thursday for late May as just one afternoon game today and even the Detroit Tigers have a rare home night Thursday game tonight. It’s a bigger than normal Thursday slate too so we should enjoy what we have in that regard.
WEATHER
There are two games which have weather to monitor for PPD risk and definitely a delay risk. Each game has good SP options in them as well.
- Guardians at Tigers – Light but increasing as they go on.
- Phillies at Braves – Heaviest of the spots, highest PPD risk.
Other notable weather items, but no risk:
- Brewers at Cardinals – Light rain, game should play fine.
- Dodgers at Diamondbacks – Roof Closed
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I could list anyone first and your response is most likely going to be …
Because that is just what we have tonight as we go through the various options on this slate. Let’s discuss them in greater detail though, shall we?
MARTIN PEREZ
Welcome to the Martin Perez show ladies and gentlemen, come one, come all. He isn’t just shutting down the Astros like he always does, he is shutting down everyone. On the season opposing RHB are hitting just .219 against his Cutter and .219 against his Change-Up.
Oakland’s RHB? They’re not good vs either pitch either as no hitter has an xWOBA Over .283 against both pitches. Oakies bad. Perezezezs good. Thank you for coming.
SHOHEI OHTANI
Toronto has been better of late with lowering their strike-out rates and Vlad/Springer are hitting the ball hard again and soon Teoscar will as well, but he won’t hit Ohtani tonight.
Ohtani has a life time 9-2 record at home with a 2.20 ERA, and that is notable because on the road it is 4.89 over his career as a pitcher. So there’s some logic to saying I’ll take Ohtani at home and with Toronto only sitting dead red or running into a hanging slider right now they’re likely to be chasing a lot of bad pitches today, giving Ohtani a nice strikeout floor in a nice 69 degree Anaheim Stadium.
FRANKIE MONTAS
Montas took a bad line drive off his hand the other night forcing him out after 1 2/3 IP and this is someone who the Athletics should be cautious with as he is their big trade chip that remains. Could the hand be flaring up? Possibly, but all indications are he will be good to go and certainly isn’t worn down from a short start last outing.
In his prior meeting with these Rangers at home he posted 25+ over 7 innings with 8 strikeouts. Marcus Semien is warming up for the Rangers and they have a couple guys who hit sinkers well (Calhoun specifically). So Montas won’t be perfectly clean, but if he has command and grip he will finish with another 6-7 inning outing.
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The other night I expanded on the pitching thoughts and it was a little bit of a reality to me to start giving you some more intel on pitching each night. I mean after all, I have the thoughts so I might as well share them right? I have always wanted to make sure I narrow down the pitching recommendations and the hitting recommendations to everyone, but I think the feedback is that you would like these other thoughts and nuggets, so here we go with some leftover thoughts.
PITCHING LEFTOVERS
Tarik Skubal, Aaron Nola and Kyle Wright are all guys that would have been in contention here if not for rain issues on each of them and I am writing this up in the morning without planning to edit it in the afternoon if one of them is PPD.
Skubal has a re-match with Cleveland, who he was set to finish with a respectable game before taking a liner last outing. Cleveland is still not a high strikeout team and especially vs LHP, but Skubal like the other two guys has a really high Called Strike Whiff rate and should miss plenty of bats if the game starts on time without any weather delay.
Aaron Nola is generally not as good on the road for whatever reason, but my gut says he pitches very well before some dude comes in and blows the lead for the Phillies.
Kyle Wright has come into his own and through 47 innings so far has given up just 2 HR and has a respectable 23% line drive rate. If he keeps those things up he will continue to be a 6 IP, low damage K/IP arm each and every time out. Unlike Nola though, he won’t give you a bulldog game where drives the bus all the way to the 8th inning and then hands the keys off to some drunk to blow his 1-0 gem because they’re not letting him go past 90~ pitches or so. But I like Wright a lot, except for … that weather.
German Marquez and Patrick Corbin are in a park plays up for offense when the humidity ratings are high, which today they are, so the risk on them is too high compared to what we have out in the Oakland game.
I would rather not talk about Daniel Lynch vs Devin Smeltzer for the second time in a week and the Royals do better when they have just seen the SP, so Smell-ya-later on that one and Twins at home vs a LHP are not worth messing with unless you just took your 4th sip of a beer at a bar and you are feeling very generous.
Adam Wainwright should win, but you can just bet the Cardinals ML (-123) for that instead.
And then there are the Angels…. They are facing the guy who my gut wanted me to write up but I said no, I cannot do it. The Angels historically are known for having duds at home against LHP out of nowhere. You wouldn’t figure it with the bats they have in this lineup, but it happens. Hyun-Jin Ryu started slow but had his best outing last time out and maybe he is focused with the big spot vs Ohtani on the other side. If there was a sleeper/darkhorse tonight, it’s Ryu.
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CARDINALS
Goldschmidt, Arenado, Yepez, Bader
Expect the Cardinals to be loaded up with RHB against Lauer tonight and he is going to have some negative regression coming. Lauer has a 33% SO rate vs RHB but has yielded 6 HR and gave up 15 HR to RHB a year ago. Basically if he faces a RH lineup that doesn’t strike out, he will get rocked. Hello St. Louis…
ROCKIES
Rodgers, Daza, Joe
Man, Trevor Story would have mashed tonight if he was still a Rocky. Oh well, I guess he will get a 0 in his match-up in stead. Instead Brendan Rodgers, Yanathan Daza and Connor Joe are our picks here with Rodgers statistically being the must play — but he typically has a shitty spot in the order.
DODGERS vs DIAMONDBACKS
This game features the team with the most HR hit in the month of May — Arizona. Quick synopsis in the SP match-up is the lefties on both sides are all licking their chops. If not for Goldschmidt, Freeman would be the top 1B tonight and is a great UTIL option on FanDuel. Otherwise the Dodgers in my mind are too expensive to stack as a team so just look for one offs here from Will Smith or Max Muncy as well.
Arizona is the side I really like. Pavin Smith continues to be criminally cheap and batting 2nd for the snakes at home, gimme that and nobody is hitting more consistently than Ketel Marte right now. That 2-3 punch in this lineup is a terrific start to lineups today.
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CATCHER
There really isn’t much here worth getting excited about tonight.
- Andrew Knizner
- Keibert Ruiz
- Austin Hedges
FIRST BASE
- Paul Goldschmidt
- Freddie Freeman
- Josh Bell
SECOND BASE
Love Brendan Rodgers tonight, really hope he gets bumped up in the lineup. Story is mostly a FD only play even though he’s on fire as that 5700 price tag on DK is too steep for me.
- Brendan Rodgers
- Ketel Marte
- Max Muncy
THIRD BASE
- Nolan Arenado
- Josh Rojas
- Justin Turner
SHORTSTOP
Not much really stands out at this position despite there being a lot of big names (and big prices) on players at this spot. I am fine punting this posotion on DK tonight with whatever the spinning wheel gives you. FD use this in your stack.
- Tim Anderson
- Tommy Edman
- Jose Iglesias
OUTFIELD – Mt Rushmore
The OF position is once again one where you do not pay up for 3 studs simply because they are there. Juan Soto has been cold however if that game is going over like I think then he has to figure into the equation somehow for them.
- Pavin Smith
- Juan Soto
- Bryon Buxton
- Andrew Vaughn
OUTFIELD – Value
- Kyle Garlick
- Yonathan Daza
- Franmil Reyes
- Harrison Bader
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- Paul Goldschmidt – 1B – Cardinals – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Nolan Arenado – 3B – Cardinals
- Pavin Smith – OF – Diamondbacks
- Andrew Vaughn -OF -White Sox
- Brendan Rodgers – 2B – Rockies
- Tim Anderson – SS – White Sox
- Keibert Ruiz – C – Nationals
- Juan Soto – OF – Nationals
- BONUS ………………….. Freddie Freeman – 1B – Dodgers
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CORE PLAYS
Perez (and/or Montas)
Paul Goldschmidt
Brendan Rodgers
Pavin Smith
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OWNERSHIP BREAKDOWN
Look for LA to be popular and likely paired with some bad donkey pitching if they are. The Twins will also be a popular play but last time vs Lynch he reportedly started the game despite back spasms and had no accuracy/control. He should be much better today.
The Cardinals will be very low owned.
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BETTING PLAYS
St. Louis ML -123
White Sox ML
Diamondbacks ML +155
Rockies/Nationals OVER 8.5
Royals/Twins UNDER 8
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