 Last night's game of the Dodgers was about as disappointing as you can possibly get, a complete game shut out thrown by Chad Cool, and it's a bummer because I was very high on them, had a lot of Dodger stacks out there, and did not do well as a result of what happened in that game. And I'd love to like ignore the Dodgers indefinitely because that was annoying. The problem is they are still in Coorsfield, they are facing another pitcher, I'm okay, stacking against her tonight, and it means we probably got to go right back. Not a lot of time for those wounds to heal, but I think that is the right way to play things for tonight. So unfortunately, the Dodgers back on the menu once again, we'll try to make it more palatable, try to find ways to hopefully make it a fresh slate for us and make things less painful, but it ain't going to be easy. So we'll dive on in and get you set for this Tuesday night's slay. Welcome on into the solo shop. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and Numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for Numberfire.com. Here to break down this 14 game main slate with lockset for 7.05 p.m. Eastern for today. The low to weather note for tonight is that at Wrigley Field, winds are out to center at 11 miles per hour. It's also 80 degrees. So not like a 16 mile per hour wind or anything like that, but it is 11. It is pretty warm. So not a massive bump up to batters, but I do think I would give a boost to hitters for the Reds and the Cubs of Wrigley Field. Cubs face in the least Castillo. That's pretty tough, but if you want to get some one-offs in there, get some Reds in there, I think that could be justifiable based on the weather. Total is rising in that game already as we speak. We'll break down the pitching preview in just one second. But first, a quick reminder, we have our PGA podcast coming up later on today, right here on the same podcast. Me, myself and Brandon Godula breaking down this weekend's event, the John Deere Classic out in Illinois. We'll break that down from a DFS perspective. Let you know who is still in the field. Let you know it's kind of a wonky field for this week. Guys, we're leaning towards what we'd like. We need salary tier and much more to get that podcast and all of our MLB, UFC and NASCAR podcasts. Make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review as well. Hey, sports fans, there is no better time than today to sign up for Fandull Fantasy. For users who have yet to make a deposit on Fandull Fantasy, you can deposit today to receive two free entries. All you have to do is deposit a minimum of $10 into your Fandull DFS account and you will be instantly rewarded with two free vouchers. This is a limited time offer, so be sure to deposit now and play for free at the Fandull.com or download the Fandull Fantasy app. Today, eligibility restrictions apply, go to Fandull.com or download the Fandull app for more details. Pitching preview for this Tuesday main slate, Carlos Rodan is the highest salary pitcher on Fandull, checking in at $10,600, followed by Zack Wheeler at 10-4. Bummer Valdez is 10-2 with Robbie Ray at 10-2 as well. Zack Gallin is 10,000 with Clayton Kershaw in Coors at 99. Sean Maniah facing Gallin is 98. Johnny Quinto is 96. Charlie Morden 95. Brandon Woodruff 94. Frankie Montas is 92. That Yankee Stadium. And Tarek Scubble is $9,000. Carlos Carrasco, John Gray, Luis Castillo, Michael Wacca, and Dean Cramer are the others at $8,000 or higher. Now, for tonight, I think that there are two great options and they depend on which format you're playing. For Cache Games, give me Carlos Rodan as a top option. We'll talk about him here. We'll talk about the top tournament arm after that. Rodan is at home against the Tigers. That should pretty much explain all of it because the Tigers, although they've been trending up and they are better against lefties, they're still a team we can definitely feel good about targeting with an opposing lefty. They have a 120 ISO against lefties with a 97 WRC plus. It's still a plus spot. As we discussed a few times recently, Rodan's velocity has been down and it's a sample that spans six starts now. The strikeouts have not been as steady in this time, but the results are phenomenal for Rodan. He has a 1.78 ERA. He has an eight plus strikeouts in three straight starts. He had double digits against the Braves in Atlanta, his most recent start. Now he goes from that stuff to facing the Tigers at home. I do think the velocity is concerning because something like that can sometimes predict a backslide in results, but we aren't seeing that with Rodan. Five starts, a big enough sample to see some concern and especially I think reassuring that we're not seeing that backslide in either the results or the peripherals. We're going to see Rodan at massive popularity. It's an easy button matchup. He's at home coming off a huge game. That's why I think there's leeway to potentially deviate in tournaments because you have 14 games on the slate. You can potentially feel good about going elsewhere, but for cash games, it's as easy as it gets just to lock in Rodan and feel good about him there. So Carlos Rodan to me, the top pitcher of the night. For tournaments, it is a pretty scary matchup for Zach Wheeler and that can be concerning for sure, but I do like him quite a bit and I will be in on him for sure. He's facing the Braves. Sorry, my dog was scratching herself behind me and I was very concerned about what was going on. Weird noises. Anyway, Zach Wheeler gets the Braves scary matchup, but I do think he is the top tournament option for tonight. The Braves aren't a team. I really want to target too much. They have a 110 WRC plus against righties in their active roster. They have a lot of power. It's a bad spot for Wheeler, but Wheeler is more equipped to handle a tough matchup than some. He always has had great bad at ball data and that includes this year too. For the full season, Wheeler has let up a 31% fly ball rate with a 35% hard hit rate and that can help against a powerful team like the Braves. We have seen Wheeler filtering in more curve balls recently and that could be concerning because if you toss in more off-speed stuff, it can sometimes alter your bad at ball profile, which we want to stay steady with Wheeler. You didn't see that happen here so far though, because he still has just a 27% fly ball rate allowed in the five starts with more curves. So actually the fly ball rate has gone down. His strikeout rate in that time is 29%. The Braves will strike out. They have a 26% strikeout rate against righties. Wheeler faced them once earlier on this year. That was in Atlanta and he still got 10 strikeouts and six innings. Now they go to Philadelphia and he does have bigger home road splits than some do. So this is a boost to get him at home in this spot. I would be high on Wheeler for tournaments. I honestly would consider him for cash. I don't think you need to with Rodan being there, but like for some reason you don't like Rodan, I think you'd go there too. So we've got Robbie Ray, we got some other good pitches in the slate. To me, it's Carlos Rodan for cash games, Zach Wheeler for tournaments, Rodan for tournaments too, but I think that the roster rate discount here due to the matchup is pretty enticing for Zach Wheeler. So for like a single entry tournament, I'm probably leaning towards Wheeler there. For the value play, I'm honestly a bit surprised. John Gray's salary is just $8,800. I think he's proven recently that he's worth more than that, but I'll take it. I'm not going to push back on it too much. I'm fine with him here at that lower salary. He's facing the Royals and they're not a high strikeout matchup, but they're not a bad matchup either. They have a 92 WRC plus against righties with a 121 ISO and the strikeout rate for them is not outliersly low. It's 20%. We can use pitchers facing the Royals if they're good enough, and I think Gray is. We have nine starts now on Gray since his velocity stabilized and he has a 26% strikeout rate in that time. They 3.66 skill interactive ERA. He's got pretty decent batted ball numbers. So it's certainly not a perfect profile, but it is pretty solid, I think. We've seen some single game upside out of Gray too. He said double digit strikeouts twice and those came against the Rays and the White Sox. And although they're not great offenses, they're not pushovers either, I would say. Gray has not faced a lot of low strikeout teams in this time, so it's possible that his strikeout rate in the sample is a bit juiced up, but I like what he's done. I've got Gray projected at 6.5 strikeouts for today and that's pretty good. I really do like the studs. I like Wheeler a lot and I like Rodin a lot, but I will upgrade my player pool despite that. I think he does more than enough to justify that here. If you look at Gray's profile, you will see some pretty drastic home road splits. He's only made three starts at home and he's been very good in those. So I wouldn't worry too much about those. Personally, I think it's something to consider. Like I talked myself out of his K-Prop as a result of those home road splits, but for DFS, I think that there's still enough juice there to feel good about him. Okay, let's go to stacking and talk about these gosh darn Dodgers because last night was tough. I think we got to go back though. They're facing Kyle Freeland. He's a lefty and you know, that's another negative here. I'd rather get them against Variety, even despite how well that went last night, especially with Mookie Betts being out. I prefer them against Variety, but I think it's fine. We'll see. I think that maybe we just get a rosary discount and hope for it, but I don't know. We'll see. It's not fun, but I think we should go back to the Dodgers either way. Freeland is a guy who lets up a ton of balls in play, which we should seek out at Coorsfield. He has a 15% strike area for the season with a 7% walker, which means he's letting the ball in play about 78% of the time. It's a big number for Coorsfield. Freeland has been tinkering. He's been throwing fewer change ups and fewer sliders in his past seven starts, but that hasn't changed the plate discipline numbers. And the bad at ball numbers are actually getting a bit worse. He's let up a 45% fly ball rate with a 43% hard hit rate in this time. Freeland has had some good starts at home in this span. He held the braze to no runs across seven innings back on June 4th. They're better against lefties than the Dodgers are, but I'm not going to avoid what I think is a good stack based on one good start for Freeland and one bad outing for the Dodgers last night, where they had a short turnaround coming off of a late game on Sunday. The process says we should be here, so I agree with it. So the Dodgers, despite last night's clunker, are a quality option here for today. Now, within these Dodgers stack, I will be in on Trace Thompson when I'm going there. He hit sixth against the leftie a couple days ago. He's hitting against righties too. They had him in the lineup. He was in there last night. So I'd expect them to probably hit sixth or so tonight. He was spanking the ball done in AAA. He had a 340 ISO there with a 46% fly ball rate. He struck out a lot in the big leagues so far, which is a concern, but it's less of a concern against a guy like Kyle Freeland, who doesn't get a lot of strikeouts. So Thompson to me is a deserving core play here at $2,500 because of the platoon advantage, because of the salary, because of the offense, all that stuff adds up to make Thompson, at least to me, a really good value play for today at $2,500. The second stack is going to be the Rangers. The park here is not nearly as advantageous as they're in Coffin Stadium, but it is at least warm. It is 84 degrees, which is second warmest behind Coors Field. So it's not terrible. They're facing Jonathan Heasley for tonight. Heasley is still getting fine results despite his poor peripherals. He has a 4.14 ERA. His expected ERA though is 5.51. He has a 5.20 skill interactive ERA, strikeout rate 18%, walk rate 12%. Typically, when you see a gap between results and peripherals, it's because the guy has good batted ball numbers. That's not the case here. Both the hard hit rate and the fly ball rate against Heasley around 44%. Teams should be teeing off on him, but they're not doing that just yet. We did see some cracks in the most recent starts. He led up four earned runs to the Angels. There were two home runs there. I'm expecting that to be more than norm as the sample expands. The Rangers offense is not great, but they've got enough guys we could feel good with. So I'm on them here behind the Dodgers for tonight. We do want to favor lefties against Heasley. And I do think that can include Josh Smith. He's not a big power guy, but he has some upside for DFS via his legs. He's batting lead off now and he draws walks, which gives him more shots at those that an upside play for him and stolen bases. Heasley will walk a lot of guys. So Smith isn't the big ISO guy we typically go towards for DFS, but he does still have a path to upside via his speed. So Smith $2,200 for tonight, very advantageous salary given the multiple paths, I guess one path he has to upside via his legs, but 22, batting lead off, has some upside enough for me to feel pretty good about him there. So you've got Thompson on the Dodgers. You've got Josh Smith on the Rangers as far as big value plays. And I do think there is one and they're a third stack too. And that's the Cardinals. They will be high on my list facing Braxton Garrett, who's a lefty. And that's kind of the key thing here because it's Cardinals. Garrett has looked pretty good both in AAA and the major so far this year. He has a hat, a 3.12 ERA and AAA across five starts. It is 4.08 in the majors and four starts. And Garrett does get some ground balls, which can be a bit annoying, mistaking perspective, but those ground balls haven't necessarily followed him to the big leagues in his two different stints or three different stints, I guess, but last year, 38% ground ball right in the majors. It is 43% this year in four starts, not a huge sample, but growing. And when you couple a 43% ground ball rate with a lot of hard contact, it's possible to get in trouble. And that's especially true against a very good offense, which the Cardinals have. They are a great one against lefties with a 130 WRC plus in the active roster, a 44% fly ball rates, low strikeout rates. So if Garrett's facing a more middling offense, I'm not stacking here. You know, the ground ball rates pretty good stuff like that. But against the Cardinals, it's a different discussion. I think you got to be pretty good as a leftie to shut them down. And I'm not sure Garrett's quite there yet. I will take a swipe here at the Cardinals and see if Garrett can get the job done. And I'll put them third behind the Dodgers and the Rangers for tonight. The value play here, we got a Trace Thompson for the Dodgers. We've got Smith for the Rangers. It's one Yep has for the Cardinals. And he'll be a big part of that, whether it's as a stack or as a one off to get you one more value play to get to more high salary Dodgers or at least Garcia. Yep has his $2,400. He is eligible at first base in outfield. He went deep twice last night. Now, three home runs the past two games. And that's not a surprise because he showed a lot of power in AAA. And he gets you, you know, multi-home or upside for a very low salary. So if you need help squeezing in some of the key Dodgers or squeezing in at least Garcia on the Rangers or just getting to those guys while using Wheeler or Rodan, Yep has a pretty good one off. So Smith, Thompson, Yep has, I think between those three guys, you've got enough salary flexibility to stack the Dodgers and use Rodan or Wheeler, despite their high salaries. I think you can make that work for tonight. So as a pure one off, I think Yep has is my favorite. It's between him and Thompson, but pretty close. I think that Yep has really good option for today, but probably Thompson because the course of fact, but Yep has very close second and they're both above Smith for me in terms of pure one offs for tonight. Things to watch on this Tuesday slate. I do think there is some reason to consider Brandon Woodruff in tournaments. He's coming off the IL. So the pitch count here could be a little bit wonky, but he went 51 and 74 pitches in his two rehab starts. So I think he could go 90 or so tonight. That'd be a pretty good number for him. Woodruff was electric in those two rehab starts. It was really good. So the numbness in his fingers, to me at least, is less concerning now given how well he pitched there. It seemed like he had a good feel for his pitches in those two starts. I'm not going to do it a ton with Woodruff, especially because I do like Gray, but all of some shares. I think that he showed me enough pitch counts high enough to at least consider him for tonight. Chase Silseth is coming back up for the Angels to start tonight. Great numbers in triple I, both in his first and his second stint, but really did struggle his first time in the majors. Lot of hard contact, not enough strikeouts. I'm not totally sold that four start sample forward. Silseth is what we should expect going forward, but I will have some White Sox stacked tonight to see what he's got. I think that we can definitely justify that for sure. And I also don't mind stacking the other side of that game with the Angels and tournaments specifically. Johnny Cueto, really high sour for DFS, $9600. So I'm not typically stacking there, but his velocity has been low for his past five starts. And he's led up a lot of fly balls and a lot of hard contact. I'm not sure if the Angels will connect here, but Angels offense is pretty good. And I don't think they'll be super popular for tonight. So I wouldn't mind the Angels for sure as a route to go for DFS. If you want to DVM a 14 game slates, you know, especially if people are going towards a couple offenses in general, don't mind the Angels as a differentiation play for stacking for tonight. Okay, let's finish up with our Dinger calls for today. I'm going to go with Adelisa Garcia as the boring one. Mentioned easily the hard contact and fly balls he's led up. It's a really rough profile in terms of trying to project homers going forward. Had some success here last week with Jerry Walsh against him. So I'll go with Adelisa Garcia as the boring homerun call for tonight. The fun one is kind of cheating since that course field, but it's Trace Thompson. And I feel okay making him the fun one because, you know, he's not a guy who's been the big things all that long so far this year. We don't traditionally think of Thompson as being a big power guy outside of that one spurty ad back in 2016. But you know, I'm fine with it. I think that he's at least interesting enough to give him a shot here. So I'll trust the numbers he put up in the minor leagues earlier on this year. Trust the power he's shown at times and I'll make him a fun one. It's that course field says cheating, but hey, you know, as always, my podcast, my rules of the homerun calls for tonight. Adelisa Garcia and Trace Thompson. That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot. Again, it's painful to go back to the Dodgers, but I do think it's the right play for tonight. And hopefully, you know, other teams can help make it more fun for you. If you are like me, you don't get the trauma of last night, but we'll see how things go in the bounce back for today. Once again, our PGA podcast for the John Deere classic coming up later on today. It's a 10 a.m. on the Fandal YouTube page and up on the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed after we're done recording. So subscribe to the YouTube page where these podcasts are posted after the fact for the solo shot and PGA podcast recorded live each and every week. If you've got any questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fandal Podcast Network at Fandal Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your DFS lineups. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to break down Wednesday's slate. This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandal Podcast Network.