 If you enjoy fun baseball tonight's slate is one for you because there are a lot of starting pitchers on tonight's slate That I would put in the fun bucket guys who I think are objectively a delight to watch Whether it be because they're a good story like Nesta Cortez or because they're the best baseball player on the planet and show Hey, oh, Tony. We got a lot of good guys who are super super fun And I really enjoy both watching and using for DFS all kind of converging on this one slate Our job is to whittle that down and decide okay Which of these fun options are they gonna use which will I prioritize? Which one will I potentially fade for tonight and see how that goes? So it's a lot to dissect. Let's dive on in to get you set for Thursday night slate. Welcome on into the solo shot That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire calm My name is Jim Sonnis I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire calm here to break down Thursday's tenant game of main slate Which once again will lock at 6 40 p.m. Eastern. So again earlier lock for today than usual 6 40 p.m. Eastern is locked for today. Make sure you get those line of set before then In case you are someone who likes to procrastinate with getting those entries in there is some weather in the forecast for today There's a chance of rain in Detroit for the Tigers and Guardians doesn't seem too bad But I would check back on that one later Atlanta is much worse That is the problem child of this late rain odds do decrease as the night goes along But I would proceed with caution with the braze and Phillies I think there's a pretty good shot that game does not play rain is possible in st. Louis for the Cardinals and the Brewers They should play but check back on that one later And then in Chicago for the white socks and red socks rain odds increase as a night goes along So the timing of that rain will dictate if they could finish it I think they'll start it but check back on that one later as well so again, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis the key trouble spots to keep an eye on for tonight We'll dive on into the pitching preview in just one second But first a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast me because we have MLB podcast Every week dad. We've got PGA podcast every week. We've got NASCAR podcast USC podcast when they have an event all right in the same place to hit subscribe and get those podcasts right as they Go up maximize your post listening research time to get those right as they're up And if you like what you hear give us a rating and review as well Hey soccer fans this season fan duel and captain Morgan are teaming up to give you a one-of-a-kind soccer to contest a spice up Gain day Introducing captain Morgan soccer pick up a weekly fantasy contest that is entirely free to play the contest is simple All you have to do is answer 10 questions about captain Morgan and that week's soccer matchup People with the most correct answers will earn their share of cash prizes head over to fan duel comm slash free games Slash captain Morgan and spice up game day with a free shot of cash prizes every Saturday No purchase necessary must be 21 plus to enter location restrictions apply the void were prohibited see full terms at fan duel Com pitching preview for this Thursday main slate Eric Lauer is the highest salary guy in Fandall checking in at $10,600 followed by Tara Scoobl or sorry Nester Cortez a 10-3 Tara Scoobl is 10-1 Shohei Ohtani down to $9,900 Martín Perez really fun this year $9,700 Kyle Wright in that potential rain Atlanta is 95 got Adam Wayne Wright checking in at 91 with Aaron Nola Frankie Montas and Michael Walker as the others at $8,000 or higher Now it's a really good slate as mentioned and we've haven't had a lot of good slates on a Thursday So it's been odd to research this and you're like, oh, well, I don't have to like scrounge for good pitchers for tonight and Showing Ohtani isn't a tough matchup for tonight, but I still think he is going to be my top arm despite that He's facing the Jays and there are a lot of great hitters in that lineup Haven't done a ton with it yet. They've got a 97 WRC plus against righties Their walk rate is low. The power number is not too scary yet So although I'm not actively targeting the Jays I think that I think that they'll get better as the the year goes along but I'm not going to turn them down when an ace like Ohtani is the guy facing them and Ohtani had already proven this but he's legitimizing the fact that he is a full blown ace he I talked before his most recent start about a slight dip in his velocity and That always scares me because there's so much wear and tear on him Like he's he goes through a lot and I am sensitive to those things like a little bit wary of velocity dips That below dip went away in his most recent start Which means that we can put more weight in the full season numbers for Ohtani and those are obviously tremendous He has a 34% strikeout rate 2.45 skill interactive era and both of those are the best marks on the slate despite a really tough competition for him for sure He's got a decent pitch count in general I've got Ohtani projected for 95 pitches tonight which translates to 8.2 strikeouts Projected for me that is second behind Nola who is very much at risk of a rain out tends to have a dip on the road Ohtani is at home. So the Jays super tough team. I don't want to get in the habit of going at them But in this spot, I'm okay with it just because Ohtani is disgusting. So Shohei Ohtani will be my top pitcher for today After Ohtani, we have a lot of options for our second slot of pitcher So that may make it silly to use a guy coming off of an injury in a short start But I feel good about Frankie Montas and I will put him second on this list let's talk about the injury first because Montas took a line drive off his hand last week didn't look good and it limited him to less than two innings but Reading the tea leaves kind of seems like he's healthy his x-rays were negative He was able to throw his bullpen this week. He was listed on Wednesday as being the starter for Thursday Which means they were not waiting to see how he fell you often see that with guys who are injured They won't list the starter ahead of time. They did that with Montas here that increases my confidence in using him in this spot Which means I can view Montas as What he's been this year, which is a good pitcher in a good matchup in nine starts Montas has a 3.09 skill interactive ER right with a 27 percent strikeout rate He's keeping the ball out of the air as well. He's facing the Rangers here. They're WRC plus against right. He's is still down to 85 They have a 24 percent strikeout rate with a low walk rates They did face Montas once back on April 23rd So more than a month ago no familiarity issues here and Montas in that game had eight strikeouts and seven and one third innings We get him at home tonight as well So I understand looking elsewhere if you are concerned about the hand injury for Montas, but Personally, I have enough confidence in his health and enough confidence in him as a pitcher to be high on him here So Frankie Montas to me is going to be number two behind Shohei Otani Now Montas does count as our value play here checking in at $8,800 So the whole board is open up open to us for the third slot Which I appreciate because I wanted to talk about Nester Cortez at 10 3 didn't get the chance to talk about him above Otani or Montas, but I will give him the slide edge here over Tarek scuba Who will discuss and things to watch Cortez is facing the race They are not as much of a high strikeout team as they used to be because their active roster has just a 19 percent strikeout rate against Lefties this year. So I'm going here because of Cortez not because of the matchup I believe in the hot start he has had because the skill interactive you are raised 2.69 in eight starts with a 32 percent strikeout Right and he's done that Well facing some pretty tough teams Cortez has faced Toronto twice He faced the White Sox twice and both those teams have a lot of lefty basher's But in 13 innings against the White Sox in consecutive starts he had 14 strikeouts Did let up for and runs, but I think in that spot. That's pretty acceptable The rays not a big strikeout team, but they also are not hitting for a lot of power against lefties They're I so just 18 or 118 and that's reassuring for me because Cortez does let up some fly balls I prefer to target him against lower power teams rays at least this year bend that against lefties There's a lot of upside in Cortez. He said double-digit strikeouts twice He had seven plus strikeouts three other times and he's gotten seven or more in each of his past three out Plus the Yankees are letting Cortez go deep now He has had a hundred and three ninety nine and a hundred pitches across his past three starts I've got Cortez projected for seven point four strikeouts tonight that ranks third on the slate behind Nola and Otani So he is above Montas for me and I will happily be in on Cortez here I think that he's capable of being the SP one on this late I was have less of him than I have Otani and Montas So to me the rankings of pitcher for tonight show a Otani one Frankie Montas to Nestor Cortez three We'll talk about how to handle Tara Scoobal in things to watch before that though Let's dive into some stacks and we stacked against stack the twins Against Daniel Lynch last week and that worked out pretty well because Lynch let up four runs across three and two-thirds innings Now he's facing them again For a second consecutive time, which means we should stack the twins here once again The interesting thing about the start last week is that it wasn't long balls There were no dingers in that game and that's the thesis behind Stacking against Lynch is because he he gets let's up a lot of hard contact and a lot of fly balls Were dinger hunt and we didn't get those there, but it did still work out But the twins had six hard hit balls in that game. They had a barrel in that game That's a good shot that one of those leaves if it happens again We have seen Lynch trying to change He's throwing more change-ups across his pass for a start Which is a good tool for a lefty to try to neutralize writings It didn't work in that twins game hasn't worked overall because his skill interactive VRA in that time is 5.29 with a 51 fly ball rate So he is tinkering hasn't quite found the fix just yet The twins are a team that can bash lefties. They have a 128 w RC plus in a small sample with just a 20 strikeout rate I would expect Lynch to figure it out eventually because he is a guy who can get whist and that's super valuable But he's not there yet. So I think it's worthwhile to keep stacking against him until that does happen Now Byron buxton, I know it's like a running joke how often I talk about him and he's in a slump But I do still want to prioritize him in these stacks assuming you play which he may not because He started three straight games. They're trying to manage his Manages load makes sense. Um, so he might not play today We haven't seen buxton get a hit since I don't think it's may 15 I think that's the most recent time is may 15. Um, his hard hit rate in that time though is 44 percent he's still striking the ball hard It's not striking out a whole lot of strikeout rate has actually come down in that time So I think he's just getting unlucky. He's had a couple warning track fly balls recently I'll be in on him here if he plays again I'm not totally convinced he will just because the the management's Plan they've had him on might dictate a day off today. Totally fine if that happens I would still sack the twins without him, but if he does play I don't think this this slump will stick around too long So my boy Byron buxton is still gonna be firmly in my thoughts for tonight For the number two stack and going back to the Dodgers once again tonight They are in arizona the roof will be closed So we do have to bump the park factor down a bit to account for that But I'm still in on them here They're facing emberto castellanos and castellanos does have good numbers across this seven starts this year He's got a 4.13 era a 4.9 or 4.29 skill interactive era. Those are pretty solid But castellanos hasn't faced many powerful teams Those seven starts have all come against teams rank 14th or lower in iso against right Whereas the Dodgers rank fourth there That's big because castellanos is not a high strikeout pitcher He has an 18 percent strikeout rate in his seven starts And against a low power team That's not a huge issue because a ball and play is not as impactful there as it will be against a a scarier team The Dodgers are scary. They have a 40 fly ball right this year. They should put the ball and play plenty in this spot. So Castellanos is not a guy I'd stack against with any offense But with this specific very disgusting lineup. I will so the Dodgers me second behind the twins for stacking for tonight I found myself using a lot of max muncie this past week Part of it is the low salary, but I also do believe he will hit for power here pretty soon His iso against righty is just 156. That's pretty underwhelming, but a 55 fly ball rates the hard hit rate is still decent So I think the power will come soon at least against righties And muncie gives you good low salary exposure to this offense So I think that i'm still in on him personally. I will keep on using him I would mention that you know, edwin rios is still a super low salary guy They're using him more and more against righties. So keep on going there But I want to highlight the fact that I'm okay with muncie despite the fact 2022 has been a pretty rough year for him so far Finally, assuming they're able to play I will rank the red sox third for stacking They're facing dallas keichel and keichel is a frustrating guy to stack against because he gets more ground balls than he would like Ideally for the full season keichel has a 54 ground ball rates His hard hit rate is 32. Both those numbers are very good But the era for keichel is still 6.60. That's because he has more walks and strikeouts in this time So on the off chance. He does make a mistake It's not a solo home run. It's typically a pretty big issue when he does let it be a hard hit ball We've seen that in reality so far this year because he let up six earned runs his most recent start He let up seven across one inning to the guardians back in april When he faced the red sox the same team faced tonight earlier on he did not implode He let up just two earned runs across six innings but now he's facing them a couple weeks later And the red sox did get a couple of barrels in that game So it's frustrating to see You know a lot of ground balls in the profile. I typically want to stack against guys who give us Higher long ball potential and that's not as big of a thing with keichel But I do still think that it's the right move To stack against him on this slate So the red sox means the number three stack behind the twins and the Dodgers for tonight I do want to talk about dub or bobby dollbeck for a second. He should bat eighth and He should benefit with keichel being a low strikeout guy The question is whether that's enough to overcome dollbeck's issues this year and I'm not sure it does honestly because it's not just the strikeouts like the striker It's down but like at what cost because his barrel rate is eight percent. That's I think below average The hard hit rate is down for dollbeck. So I'll consider him. I'm not opposed to that but It seems like his swing is off of it right now. It's kind of weird So usually you know like last year against the lefty dollbeck was like an autoplay from me at a low salary double dong potential He I will use him But he will not be a focal point from me, which is different from how I used him last year So dollbeck's still on the menu, but I think it's worth highlighting that he's getting knocked down from me a pretty decent amount as a result of The issues specifically with his bad at ball profile this year things to watch I do like terrick scoogle tonight Just a couple of drawbacks for me that pushed him below cortez The first that he's facing cleveland for the second straight start. He just saw them last week He did have five strikeouts and five innings before leaving due to an injury, but Just a seven point six percent swinging strike rate in that game for scoogle Which is a slight concern for me. So it's a repeat matchup. He wasn't overpowering them last week That's enough for me to put scuba below cortez while still liking him. Again, I'm not saying don't use him I probably will get there if I had to guess, but Those are the concerns. That's why he's not above otani montas or cortez for me I do think you can consider the diamond backs against mitch white tonight White is still ramping up off the covet list. So probably not a full full start for him And he's struggled in his two outings since he returned One of those was against arizona He allowed two runs one of which was earned across one in the third innings The fillies hit him hard over the weekend It's a good offense for stacking the diamond backs are and I think that they're an option In addition to the Dodgers in this very same game They got downgrade the park factor with the roof being closed, but there's still a good option for me For tonight I'm also okay stacking the angels against the night didn't really work out last night But based on hunjin Ryu here He struggled with hard contact in a small sample this year And that's while his strikeout rate is down at 15% So I think the angels worked for stacking got mike trout anthony rindone Taylor ward if he can play max stasi if he can play they can all hit lefties pretty well So I'm on board with the angels in the spot given that they are facing Ryu Despite the fact I can't use a tani is a batter. I still think the angels are very much in play Let's finish up here with some digger calls I tried really hard not to go byron buxton, you know, I think that uh I want to use a twin against daniel lynch And I think that buxton as like I think if he plays it's the eruptions very soon Although I think there's a good chance. He doesn't play So if Byron buxton sits give me carlos korea. He's had a lot of hard hit balls recently I think that he'll snap into it pretty soon too. So Buxton if he plays korea if not, but I know I'm a parody of myself at this point Sorry, it is what it is the fun one. I'll go to the paralta paralta facing mitch whites He's had some hard contact issues this year paralta this year as a 49 fly ball rates I wish he had done this back when the dynasty league I had him in was still active. It is no longer a thing. So A bit sad about that, but paralta has always hit the ball hard Just didn't loft it enough and suddenly that's changed and it's made him a really fun guy So homerun calls Byron buxton slash carlos korea and then david paralta first night That is all that we have here for today on the solo shop But we are back once again tomorrow to get you set for a friday main slate to get that plus our nascar Usd and pga podcast make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast And if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well 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 fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast big Thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your mlb dfs lives We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to get you set for friday slate This has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network