 I believe that yesterday was the first time in the history of this podcast where we've been doing home run picks where we had a double, double dong where both the home run picks of the day wound up going yard twice. Nolan Gorman and Shohei Otani both going deep twice last night and does put some pressure on today. But the good thing is we can kind of run it back with a lot of the same guys because Shohei Otani is pitching tonight. Nolan Gorman's Cardinals in a good spot for stacking. So we can kind of just get the band back together and try to replicate that matchup, that magic from last night. So let's see if we can do it one more time. Here's tonight in MLB DFS. 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 Wednesday night's nine game main slate with lock set for 7 0 5 p.m. Eastern for today. There is one rain note for tonight. That is in Baltimore for the Nationals and the Orioles. How much it impacts the game depends on when the rain gets there. Something to check back on later for sure. I'm a bit worried because I do wanna be getting some batters in this game. We'll see how things shake out there because might not have that choice. Also it is 95 degrees in Atlanta for the Giants in the Braves. So I downgrade pitchers there and I'm saying pitchers intentionally because there are two guys there and Carlos Rodan and Charlie Morton who are pretty good would downgrade them might still have to target one of those guys out of necessity. We'll talk about that in just a second. But first a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to the NumberFire Daily Fantasy podcast because our PGA DFS podcast for the Travelers Championship is already posted getting you set for some PGA DFS this weekend at TPC out at the Travelers Championship. And that is with myself and branding a duel of breaking down this week's feel pretty top heavy but a lot of fun names in the field we're breaking that down over on the NumberFire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. So check that out wherever you get your podcasts and if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well. As always a reminder sports fans there is no better time than today to sign up for Fanduel Fantasy for users who have yet to make a deposit on Fanduel Fantasy. You can deposit today to receive two free entries. All you have to do is deposit a minimum of $10 into your Fanduel 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. Head to Fanduel.com or download the Fanduel Fantasy app today eligibility restrictions apply go to Fanduel.com or download the Fanduel app for more details. Pitching preview for this Wednesday main slate Carlos Radon as mentioned is the highest salary pitcher on Fanduel checking in at $10,500 Shohio Tani is 10,000 flats Sonny Gray still ramping back up off the IL-97 Carrick Scoobal facing the Red Sox 96 Charlie Morton in that Weather Game 92 Jordan Montgomery against Rays 91 we have George Kirby, Tristan Mackenzie Paul Blackbird and Eric Lauer as the others at $8,000 or higher. It feels like a lot of times this year Shohio Tani has been on absolutely loaded slates. He's always going up against stiff competition on the same slate. That's not as true for tonight and it opens a door for him to be the clear top option and to carry over the good vibes from last night into today's slate as well. Ohtani is facing the Royals which is not a great matchup. It's not bad, not great. But just a, the reason it's not great is it's a 20% strikeout rate for them versus righties this year. But there was just not super threatening 94 WRC plus which gives Ohtani a solid floor. Then he provides the ceiling himself. There has been lots of inconsistency with Ohtani as a pitcher, but the overall body of work is still very, very nice. He has a 2.84 skill interactive ERA a 31% strikeout rate. Bad at ball beta is decent at least. So, and he's also not walking a lot of guys. Even with the Royals low strikeout rates I do have Ohtani projected for 7.2 strikeouts tonight. That is the most on the slate by 0.68 strikeouts, which is a pretty substantial gap. Ohtani is at home. He's in a non-threatening matchup. I see no reason not to be hiding him here. So Ohtani not dealing with as much competition for tonight is the clear SP1 for tonight's slate. And I would treat him as such both for cash games and for tournaments. The second slot tonight is a lot more wide open after Ohtani. The other guys available are either in count spots or on tight pitch counts. The one guy who doesn't have either of those restrictions is George Kirby. And I'm going to put him second behind Ohtani for tonight. He's facing the A's in Oakland. It is cooler there than it was last night where we saw some home runs in the Mariners. 70 degree temperatures, 15 degrees cooler than it was last night. Closer to what it usually is in Oakland. Obviously it's a good matchup too. The A's have a 79 WRC plus against righties in their current active roster. They don't walk a whole lot in minimal power. Not that walks are a concern for Kirby to begin with because he has a 3% walk rate across his past five starts. That's a sample where he has been leaning more on his curveball and he threw it a season high 26% of the time in his most recent start. It's not a big with pitch for Kirby but it does generate ground balls. And that's a good thing for him because he had been struggling with hard contact before this stretch. That's less of an issue now. He's led up a 36% heart hit rate across his past five starts. And that stretch is actually a stretch that started with the game against the A's. We had nine strikeouts in that game, eight the game after that. And that second game was on the road similar to tonight. They have not seen him since then so I'm not too worried about familiarity here. So it's not the world's best slate for pitching. I'm fine taking a shot on George Kirby here and ranking him number two behind Shohei Otani and feeling pretty good about that with Kirby being valued here at $800. The third slot's pretty tough. The board is open because Kirby is valued at $800 but I'm not big into most of the other studs. I think Tara Scoobles' consideration against the Red Sox but very difficult spot there. I'm gonna rank Charlie Morton next but I just know, I think it's worth noting that doing so makes me very, very nervous and the conviction level here is pretty low. It's the reason that I'm concerned as the park primarily. Again, it's super hot in Atlanta for today which is great for offense and we saw the effects of that last night. So there is no safety here but there is upside. Morton has been upping his strikeout juice recently. He has had eight, 12 and nine strikeouts as past three starts. Granted all three of those were very good matchups but not everybody can get to eight strikeouts even in good spots. Morton can, he's shown that recently. I haven't seen any big changes in his approach so I'm still counting the earliest his numbers where he wasn't getting as many strikeouts but he looped those in his strikeout rate is 25%. Importantly, for tonight it's 28% against lefties because he'll see a lot of those here. The giants are not an ideal target for a righty and we saw that with Spencer Strider last night. Well, like a lot and they punched him around. They've got a 21% strikeout right against righties. They draw a lot of walks. I just don't have a lot of other options for tonight. I have Rodan projected for six strikeouts for tonight. I've got Tarek Scoobl around six and that's where Morton is too. So Morton for me actually ranks fourth in terms of strikeouts behind Otani, Kirby and then Tarek Scoobl but Scoobl gets the Red Sox on the road. I'd rather go Morton there. So overall pretty shaky landscape other than Otani and Kirby for me, I would not be shocked if I skew more towards single entry first night and just stick to those two guys, shift my contest type preferences. I prefer single entry in general but I think it's more of a single entry type night building around those two pitchers, identifying stacks you like and having a tighter core than you may usually have. Speaking of stacks, let's go there now. We talked about Otani as a pitcher earlier on. So let's go back and again, run it back with our what worked for us last night. Yesterday I said that I was okay stacking the Cardinals against the righty but would rather stack them against the lefty and we saw them do well last night but I think they're an even better spot here. I think they need to be the number one stack for tonight. The Cardinals are facing Eric Lauer who got off to an amazing start this year but his old issues were lurking there the entire time and the big thing was the hard contact. That was a big issue that was lurking and the first seven starts this year, the ERA for Lauer was 2.16, very good number. But he's letting up a 42% hard hit rates with a 46% fly ball rate. Those are super dangerous numbers. It just didn't matter a whole lot because of how many strikeouts he was getting but toward the end of that stretch, Lauer let up three home runs in the start against the Marlins and I'm guessing it was his cutter that got hammered there because his next start out, he cut back on the uses on the pitch a lot and it was getting whacked so I get it but cutting back on the cutter hasn't helped. His strikeout rate in that time with fewer cutters is 16%. He has a 5.09 skill interactive ERA that batted ball data has not gotten better either and that's even while facing some pretty bad teams. He faced the Nationals twice in the Reds once in that time. We've seen Lauer let up three home runs in consecutive games. He let up eight earned runs in one of those games so he's struggling right now. It's possible that Lauer gets things back on track if he can get more strikeouts again but I wouldn't count on it here because the Cardinals obliterate lefties 133 WRC plus a 44% fly ball rate and 18% strikeout rate. To me, even with Lauer having some good skills and some good strikeout juice, I think the Cardinals are the top stack of the night. Within this Cardinals stack Dylan Carlson is a switch hitter but I think we need to view him in a much more positive light against lefties. Since the start of last year, Carlson has a 200 ISO against lefties versus 156 against righties. Strikes out a bit less against lefties too. I'm fine with Carlson against righties but I think he's a better option against lefties. We'll see if Paul Goldschmidt can play here. Something key to back issue that kept him out last night. Obviously if Goldschmidt can't go, you downgrade the stack a bit but between Carlson, Aranado, Juan Yepes, other guys like that, I think that there's still enough here to feel good about this Cardinals stack whether Goldschmidt plays or not. Just feel a bit less good about it if he doesn't go. The Orioles could be playing in bad weather so check back on them later but if they're able to play, I would be high on them for stacking for tonight. They're facing Patrick Corbin who just keeps on struggling. That's even with his velocity being up. We've seen Corbin throwing harder in his past seven starts than he was earlier on this year and we've seen Corbin's velocity fluctuate in the past and at times when it's gone down, he's lagged and when it's gone up, he's improved but that hasn't been the case this year with the Velo going up. In those seven games with more zip, he has a 7.05 VRA. That's even with only two of the nine runs that scored against him last week being counted as Earth. If you count seven of those as being unearned which they were, his ERA is still 7.05. He has a 4.38 skill interactive VRA with a 15% strikeout rate letting up a ton of hard contact and we've seen him let up multiple home runs in four out of seven games during this stretch. The Orioles are not a juggernaut of an offense but they're not awful. They got a 99 WRC plus against lefties, a 41% fly ball rate. That can work in the right matchups and I think this is one of those. So check back on the timing of that weather. I think they should start this game. I just question if they'll play the full thing. So check back on the weather, make sure they're gonna play, make sure they'll play most of that game. If they do, I would say to get in on the Orioles in this spot. We do wanna be highest in the righties here but I would still use Cedric Mullins. He has a 44% fly ball rate against lefties this year with a 25% strikeout rate. He also does have four steals. So he will run even with a lefty on the mound. I'd prefer Mullins against a righty but he's a super high upside guy. We could see reduced roster rates with it being lefty on lefty and Mullins good enough to have upside even when he's facing a lefty. So Mullins to me is a guy you don't gloss over even when the Orioles are facing a lefty and we are prioritizing the righties. Our third stack is a riskier one. That's the twins against Tristan McKenzie and it's risky because McKenzie is a good pitcher but it's viable because it lets up a lot of home runs. And I think to me that balance pushes us towards the twins here. The most relevant sample on McKenzie is his past eight starts. He's been throwing more sliders in that time and it is the typical trade-off of sliders where he gets a lot of whiffs but lets up a lot of hard contact. Opponents have a 517 slugging percentage against that pitch according to Baseball Simone's but his whiff rate is 32%. So I get it, I understand going more sliders but there is some risk involved. In this time McKenzie has a 4.37 skill interactive ERA. His strikeout rate is 22% and he's had good results with a 2.72 ERA but a lot of that is thanks to plus matchups. He's faced Colorado, Oakland, Baltimore and Detroit in his past four starts. He faced Oakland in the first start of this run too. If we look at Colorado, Oakland, Detroit those are all bottom four teams in the league and WRC plus against Wright. Baltimore is 19th whereas the twins who will face Knight are third. They did face McKenzie back on May 15th and he did last seven innings there but twins had a couple of home runs off him they're now healthier than they were back on May 15th. We've seen McKenzie let up multiple home runs the Tigers, the Orioles and the A's recently too. So it's very risky to stack against a guy with this kind of profile who is actually like a good real world pitcher but I'm still willing to do it here in order to get that dinger upside but it's just for turning. So the twins will be on my list assuming we're talking just for tournaments for tonight. When we're stacking the twins we can be pretty even between righties and lefties. McKenzie almost dead even splits against both. I do like Trevor Larnack a lot at $2,200. He has a 2,15 ISO this year against righties. Good bat at ball numbers. Alex Kiriloff is also a lefty. He was smoking the ball down in triple A kind of forces his way back up in the majors. He's had a lot of hard contact in three starts he came back up too. So Kiriloff, Larnack used them to get up to the Buxton's, the Correa's guys like that within this twin stack but overall the twins I think a risky but good option for this slate. Thanks to watch here. Yesterday I said I would be on O'Neill Cruz a one off and I'm there again today. He's facing Keegan Thompson who had a great start against Atlanta last time out but the longer sample says we can use guys against him especially when they're fun guys who was still a sour of $2,700 it was up was minimum last night but you know, that's still fine. So O'Neill Cruz on the menu once again for tonight. If you want the O'Neill Cruz special tonight the minimum salary guy who's in play for one off I check out the angels. They're facing Daniel Lynch and I'm not sure if I really want to stack here because we can't use O'Tonnie in stacks. The, you know, Jared Walsh kind of gets scrubbed out it's Brandon Marsh against the lefty that's tough but Lynch lets up a lot of hard contact, a lot of fly balls. So Mike Trout's awesome. I like Max Stasi and Taylor Warden. The O'Neill Cruz play of the night is David McKinnon hitting for a ton of power on AAA before he got promoted could that in the middle of the order given how power deprived these guys are against lefties. I think that if you want a minimum salary guy who can move the needle a lot, I would say McKinnon is there but also Lornaak and Kearoloff, pretty low salary as well. Finally, if you want one more full stack in case the Orioles do get scrubbed out I would check out the Cubs. They're facing Jared Ikoff who was nothing the best year in AAA and seems like he's coming up out of necessity for the most part. The Cubs not an elite offense. So I don't want to go here, but I will at times just because the Orioles reign game may force me to do so the twins not a safe stack. So I do want to diversify and not be fully in on them but the Cubs would be the next stack on my list. Okay, let's get to the Dinger calls for today. And again, a lot of pressure here to try to duplicate the double-double-dong from last night. The boring one, I will go Nolan Aronato. If Goldschmidt were to play in a new year fully healthy I'd go Goldie over Aronato but Aronato like a 57 or so percent fly ball against lefties is so far this year. So, you know, big bummer we have to settle for Nolan Aronato here. The fun one I will go Lornaak was between him and Kearoloff but Lornaak has more of the like Homer friendly profile. Kearoloff is I think the better hitter but Lornaak has the Homer friendly profile. So I will go Nolan Aronato and Trevor Lornaak as our homerun calls for tonight. That is all that we have here for today on the Soul Shot overall pretty fun slate. I do think again, like I said, led itself more so for a single entry than multi entry just because there aren't a ton of plays I like but the ones I do like I like a lot. I think that makes it a fun option for today. Once again, do not forget to subscribe to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast. We of course run up a podcast Spotify Stitcher, Google podcast, you name it, you can find us there and while you're there, like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well. If you've got questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S you can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineup starts tonight. Let's see if no one are not on Trevor Larnack and let us have some fun once again tonight. This has been the solo shot right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.