 What's going on and welcome to the solo shot. My name is Tom Vecchio. We have an eight game MLB Slate Tonight lock is set for 705. As always, this is one of the many shows on the Fandall podcast network. You can find that anywhere, whether it's iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, make sure you give it a like, follow or subscribe on a given platform. Leave a review that would be greatly appreciated. And you can follow me on Twitter at tom underscore Vecchio one. Before we hop into things, hit a Homer with a $5 Dinger Tuesdays on the Fandall sportsbook. Each Tuesday, all customers will get $5 in bonus bets. For every home run hit by both teams when you place a $25 to hit a home run wager on MLB games. And the best part about Dinger Tuesdays is that even if you bet and loses, Fandall will pay you $5 for every home run. There's no better place to bet on America's pastime than America's number one sportsbook. 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Visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org if you're in Maryland. Call 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY-467-369 if you're in New York. Call 1-800-522-4700 if you're in Wyoming or visit 1-800-GAMBER.NET if you're in West Virginia. All right, let's jump into tonight's but again, eight games late lock is set for 705. When it comes to the weather for tonight, we are looking pretty clear. It is hot and humid in Atlanta. No surprise in the summer. Always a great hitting environment there. We will certainly be looking at some braves hitters. There could be a slight bit of rain in Oakland. Shouldn't be too much overall. Also with the tropical storm hitting Southern California. We just wanna check in on the angels at home. Make sure that the playing conditions are set for that. Let's jump into the pitching of four tonight's slate starting off up at the top. Luis Castillo leads the way at 10.7. Jordan Montgomery at 10.3. James Pax then 10,000. Michael Walker at 9,700. Christian Javier at 9,400. And Lucas Gilito at 9,100. Round out the pitchers that are 9,000 and above. It's certainly looking like Castillo is the clear top option on tonight's slate. He is on the road taking on the Chicago White Sox. When we look to Castillo overall this season, he has been awesome. Coming in with a very solid 27.3% strikeout rate. He has a 6.1% walk rate. He's only allowing 1.38 homeruns per nine and he has a super solid 3.62 skill interactive ERA Sierra. Mostly a medium contact pitcher which is always good to see at 46%. He is very, very slightly a fly ball pitcher. That's at 42.2% compared to his ground ball rate at 40.7%. He's a pitcher that we've routinely trusted throughout the season to push those strikeouts to a higher level, really bringing that fantasy upside. And I gotta say he's clearly the best option among this top tier, especially the more expensive pitchers. When we factor in the salaries, when we factor in the matchups for some of these other hitters. When it comes to Chicago, really not an offense we're too worried about overall. They come with a 23.4% strikeout rate versus righties this season, which is the 10th worst in the league. They're also a below average offense as we've seen from them really for the majority of the season. They actually come in with an 84 WRC plus versus righties this season, which is tied for dead last in the league with the Colorado Rockies. There's also not a ton of power in the White Sox line of edge. You would imagine with a team, White Sox and they have 149 versus righties. All of this puts Castillo in a great spot too. I would say clearly be the top pitcher on tonight's lead. I wanna say he's a clear step ahead of Montgomery, Paxton, Waka, Javier. This is a very mixed bunch, especially when it comes to Michael Waka, 9700, I think is quite a pretty penny to pay for that salary when he's gonna be making a second start off the IL, not necessarily a spot that I wanna be going. Paxton doesn't necessarily have the easiest matchup going up against the Houston Astros. This kind of pushes me to Montgomery as the second option I'd be looking to. He's been solid this season. There's no doubt he does not have as high of a strike down rate compared to Castillo. Montgomery is only at 22% this year. He's only on 0.91 homeruns per nine, which is certainly very solid. He has a 6.3% walk rate this year. His year is sitting at 4.14, and he is a very, very big medium contact ground ball pitcher. We're hoping for him to get five, maybe six strikeouts, really get to that six sitting while limiting the damage, which he can do with this 54.1% medium contact rate and 45.9% ground ball rates. The matchup on paper may not seem great, but this Arizona team, they've kind of been struggling a bit recently. And we've seen good stuff from them overall, but their offense has clearly taken a step back when we look at them overall on the season versus lefties, they're coming in with the 94 WRC plus, which is 19th in the league. And certainly they have some power and they added some bats at the deadline, but this is not the matchup. I think we need to be shying away from Montgomery, who yes, he doesn't have to as high a strike a rate as Castillo, but he's looked good in his first three starts for Texas with a 25% strike a rate and 37.5% strike a rate in two of these three starts. So he's been pushing it a little bit higher. Now granted, these are certainly easier matches against Miami and against the Angels where he pushed that strike a rate a little bit higher. And yes, Arizona does not have as high of a strike a rate compared to those teams, but he's certainly in a good spots overall, given the lack of power we see in the Diamondbacks lineup in the majority of things. Yes, Christian Walker, Corbin Carroll, Tommy Pham, those players getting home runs, but I'm not overly worried about them for Montgomery. Ultimately for pitching, I think this leaves two clear options. The third for me would be Lucas Geolito for the now Los Angeles Angels. I like his salary overall. And since he's going up against the Reds, this is also a team that, yes, they have some power there, these flashes, but overall, they've kind of been trending downward in recent weeks. And this is, again, not a team that I'm super worried about overall. We've seen some really good strikeout stuff, not only from Geolito this season, but obviously over the course of his career is coming up with a 24.8% strike a rate. His 8.4% walk rate is right on that edge of something that I don't love to see. His a 4.2 OCR this season. 49.2% medium contact rate is great to see. It's that 45% fly ball rate that can get him into danger, which is why we see 1.65 home runs per night allowed this season. Yes, Cincinnati, they do have some power in their lineup for the 167 team ISO, which is the 13th best versus right-handed pitching, but they also come in with a 95 WRC plus versus righties, which is 18th in the league. So it's a mixed bag for Cincinnati when, yeah, they have some power, but they're not consistent overall. More importantly, they have a 24.3% strikeout rate versus right-handed pitching, which is the seventh worst in the league. So it does present that fantasy upside that we want from Geolito. Who is 9100 tonight? I want to say it had a pretty good salary. So it's looking like Castillo number one up the top. If you want that little bit of sour relief dropping down to 9100, Geolito could be that player. And I think Montgomery is a nice pivot away from Castillo. I don't think that Montgomery has nearly as high of a strikeout sitting as Castillo does, but he should be far less popular compared to Castillo when we look at, you know, just general line of construction. Don't have a whole lot of interest in passing going up against Houston. Don't have interest in Michael Walker at that salary going up against Miami, although it is an easier match up going up against Miami. The pitch count is something I'm going to be, you know, particularly interested in for Walker, considering it is his second start off the IL. Let's turn to some stacks for tonight. Again, an eight game slate, it's not overly loaded with options. There's no course field on tonight's that I think it points us in a direction of a few clear teams. And one of them should not be any surprise. That would be the Atlanta Braves. They are at home. They're going up against the New York Mets. The Mets will have David Peterson on the mound. He is not a pitcher. We need to be worried about really at any point. And he's a pitcher that kind of has the overall profile, something that I like to see where it's 24.2% striking rate. It's just slightly above the league average. He's not overly dominant on the mound. He has 11% walk rate this season, which is very, very dangerous. That's one of the things I love to see when it comes to targeting pitchers. You're letting runners on base for free prevents so much potential upside. Now, if he only has a 72.2%, excuse me, 72.2 in sample size this season. So you could say, okay, that's a little bit small. 11% walk rate could be slightly inflated, but if you look back to last year, he had 105.2 in his pitch and it was at 10.6. So he's a pitcher that does not have that walk rate at a lower point. It's he's always going to be struggling with that. And this leads to what we're seeing him posting this season, which is 1.36 home runs per nine allowed. So we have this combination of a pitcher that's not overly dominant on the mound with strikeouts. He's allowing runners on base for free. And that's leading to home runs for the opposing team, which presents massive fancy upside. And yes, the Atlanta Braves have plenty of power in their lineup, surprise, surprise. They have several hitters we can be looking to. Now, Pearson is a left-handed pitcher. So we're going to be looking to a lot of the righties when it comes to the Braves. Shocking, they have power up and down their lineup. I think we should be looking to them as many as we can possibly afford. Now, this is where I think Geolito can come into play because Castillo is very, very expensive. And when we're looking to the Braves lineup and we want to get several of these hitters into our lineup because of the power that they have, this is where things can get a little bit dicey because Acunha, Olson, Murphy, Riley are all 3,900 and above led by Acunha at 4.8, which is very, very expensive when we're trying to get some of these hitters in our lineup with a pitcher that's over 10,000. So that's where I like Geolito just a bit. Of course, all of those hitters are elite, but we have to be considering someone like Marcelo Zuna, whether it's Shaw Murphy or Travis Darno in the lineup. If Darno's in the line in piece 2900, that offers a nice bit of salad relief. We can always be going there. Orlando R.C. is actually seeing more playing time with Ozzy Alby's out. You could certainly be looking there, he's 2700. It really comes down to for the Atlanta lineup. How many and which players can you afford? Yes, getting Acunha, Olson, Murphy, Riley would be awesome, but that's probably not going to be happening when you have Castillo as your pitcher. So it comes down to who makes the lineup for the Braves and how many of them can you afford in one spot? Of course, we like to have all the top hitters, but it is what it is. We live in a salary cap situation when it comes to MLB DFS. So the Braves are going to be popular tonight. I don't think that's anything of a surprise, especially on a smaller eight game slate. We also can be looking to the San Diego Padres. Johnny Cueto is expected to be on the mound for the Miami Marlins. Yes, we do have a bit of inconsistency when it comes to the Padres offense overall, but ultimately not too worried about the match of when it comes to Johnny Cueto. He has obviously a smaller sample size this year, only 32.1 innings pitched. He's obviously not getting the strikeouts as he once was earlier in his careers at 20% this season. Obviously comes from a small sample size. He's also allowing 2.51 home runs per nine. Again, we have to take that with a bit of a grain of salt just given the smaller sample size along with this 50% fly ball rate. Again, we have to account for the innings pitched. However, I still like this matchup for San Diego. They have a number of power hitters in their lineup. Of course, we want to be looking to the top with Fernando Tates. He's of course a great option, basically any single slate one. Soto, Xander Bogart, Manny Machado, all of these players are going to be solid on a nightly basis. Hassan Kim has been hot, can't be talking about baseball, especially doing a solo shot and not mention Hassan Kim for Jim. Again, this is also a lineup that, depending on who makes it what we should be seeing from them, they're mostly going to be in a good spot. Their salaries are a bit more affordable compared to the Atlanta Braves where Tates at 4K is the most expensive option. And then Soto, Machado, Kim, are the next three options that are all 3K and above. Now, I would love to mix in some players, whether it's Xander Bogart, surprisingly under 3,000. Jake Croningworth, 2800, hasn't been the most consistent this year. You can ask my season long teams, I had to drop him, but he's a player that I'd certainly be looking to just to round out a stack because he's surrounded by some better power hitters. So, Johnny Quedo, not a pitcher that I'm overly worried about. Yes, I'm a new factoring in a smaller sample size. He's not going to be allowing 2.51 homeruns per night the entire season, but a pitcher I'm not overly worried about when it comes to the matchup versus San Diego. We also can be looking to the Texas Rangers tonight, another high scoring offense. Yes, their offense hasn't been as hot as it once was. This three game sweep from the Brewers wasn't amazing. But this is a spot that I think they can turn things around. They're absolutely in a very close race in the AL West, the wild car, whatever it might be. They're going up against Slade Keckio for the Sekio, excuse me, for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He's a pitcher prospect for the Diamondbacks, has a very small sample size in his first year in the majors. It's 10.1 innings. So, there's not much we can take from that. If we look to his triple A numbers, this season where he had 103 innings pitched, it's still not overly great with a 23.1% strike rate and 2.01 home runs per nine allowed. His Sierra in the 10.1 innings is up at 5.14. I don't think we can take anything from that. We do see him allowing some fly balls, whether it's at the MLB level this season or in triple A at 38.7 in the MLB level and at 41.1 in the minor league. So, not a pitcher we may need to be worried about. Initially, I know it was a top prospect for them, but that is yet to come to fruition. So, the Texas Rangers are another team we can be looking to tonight. Kind of the same situation where they have some very clear power hitters at the top of their line that we want to get to. It just comes down to how many of them can we afford. Corey Sears, 4400, Marcus Simeon, Adolis Garcia, Nate Lowe, all these players would be great to get into our line. I'm specifically looking to Corey Sear with a 340 ISO this season. Versus right-handed pitching is absolutely amazing. We could also be looking to Nate Lowe at a 202 ISO, Adolis Garcia at a 254 ISO, and even Mitch Garver, if he makes the lineup, whether it's him or Yonaheim, Mitch Garver has a 240 ISO in this split. So, we're looking at several hitters that all have ISOs over 200% and plenty of power upside. They all are absolutely phenomenal when it comes to their fantasy potential. It's just a matter of, again, how many of them can we afford when we're trying to get braves hitters into our lineups, when we're trying to get some of these Padres hitters into our lineups. And yes, I would love to see someone like Shawn Murphy in the lineup for the braves tonight, but Travis Darno does offer a ton of salad relief. He's one K-Cheaper. We will take every bit of salad relief we can, especially on a smaller slate when we're only dealing with so many options. And when we have a very clear SP1 that we wanna be paying up for with Luis Castillo. So tonight's slate, I wanna say, is pretty straightforward where it's Castillo, it's Geolito, maybe it's Jordan Montgomery when it comes to the pitching options. And then we're gonna see the braves super popular. We're gonna see the Padres as a popular option. We're gonna see the Texas Rangers as a popular option. You know, kind of the mainstays when it comes to MLB DFS. Now, can we be looking to someone like Seattle as an offshoot stack? I think that's possible. They're obviously super hot right now. They sweep Houston, they have their offense rolling Julio Rodriguez is putting up hits left and right. I think they are also an option potentially tonight going up against Tukey Tucson for the Chicago White Sox. So the Seattle Mariners would be a team I would look to as kind of a filler stack depending on what other players I can afford in or out of my lineup. When it comes to the Dinger calls to close things out, this is gonna be relatively straightforward. The easy answer for tonight's slate, you know, we always go with like a safer option and kind of a long shot option. The safe option tonight would be Ronald Acuna for the Braves going up against David Peterson, love the split righty for Acuna lefty for Peterson. It can be any of the righties when it comes to the Braves lineup, whether it's Acuna, Riley, if Murphy makes the lineup, Marcelo Zuna, I'm gonna go with Acuna as the clear answer. And then I really like Nate Lowe for the Texas Rangers tonight. Love the split that he has, love the salary for Lowe as well. He should be a player of 3,400. You can build into any type of lineup, whether it's cash or GPP. The Rangers are in a spot to put up some runs once again. So straightforward slate for tonight. Eight games again, locks at 7.05. I'll be back tomorrow. Jim will be back on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Then I'll be back on Monday and Tuesday, just switching things up as we come to the end of MLB season with NFL quickly approaching. All right, so that does it for today's slate. As always, eight games starts at 7.05. This is one of the many shows on the Fandome Podcasts Networking. You can find that anywhere, whether it's iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play. Make sure to give it a like, follow or subscribe. Leave a review that would be greatly appreciated. You can follow me on Twitter at Tom underscore Becky one. Until next time, good luck in your contests.