 Just a four-game slate and an early lock time for today in daily fantasy baseball. So our job is to break down this four-game slate, let you know where you can find upside over on Fanduul, get you off on your way so you can fill out your lineups before lock, which is set for 107 p.m. Eastern. We're gonna break that down right now to get you ready for Thursday's slates. Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the Fanduul podcast network and numberfire.com. My name is Jim Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire here to break down Thursday's four-game main slate with locks up for 107 p.m. Eastern for today. Now, there is there are three games tonight. There currently is no slate available for those specifically on Fanduul. I'm gonna talk about those three games because I assume a slate will be up eventually for them. But as of right now, there's nothing so if you want to check out thoughts without salaries for that three-game slate later on, check out the timestamp in the episode description, jump there, see what we got, or if you're listening after 107 p.m. Eastern and don't want to listen to the main slate, just jump ahead to that and see what my thoughts are. And again, hopefully there's a slate up because if not, oh well, we're gonna go through that. So just three pitchers and three stacks of the main slate to get you on your way. As far as weather goes on this main slate, three retractable roofs on this slate, two of those should be closed. That is in Miami for the Marlins and the Padres and in Arizona for the Diamondbacks and Rockies. That one they've already said will be closed for today. So downgrade park factor there. Downgrade park factor kind of, I guess in Miami, the part of the roof is closed pretty often there. So that doesn't make a huge difference. But Toronto, it should be open 81 degrees there. Also 81 in New York for the Mets and Phillies. So best parks as far as temperature for today are in Toronto for the Brewers and Blue Jays and in New York for the Phillies and Mets. Still do like Arizona, obviously, but not full Arizona with the roof being closed for today. We'll dive in and outline what that means. Talk about some pitchers, talk about some stacks here in just one second. But first, a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast, we of course are also over on the Fandwall YouTube page. So if you want to check out a video version of the short, just subscribe to the Fandwall YouTube page. If you like what you hear, leave us a thumbs up as always. And if you like what you hear on the podcast side of things, leave us a five star rating over on Apple podcasts. 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Gambling problem call 1 800 gambler or visit Fandwall.com slash RG in Arizona. 1 800 next step protects next step to 533 for two in Connecticut. 1 888 789 777 777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Indiana. 1 809 with it in Wyoming in Kansas. 1 805 224 700 or in Kansas ksgamblinghealth.com Louisiana is 1 877 770 stop in Massachusetts gambling helpline ma.org or call 800 327 5050 for 24 seven support in Maryland and the gambling help that or in New York 1 877 8 hope and wire text open why and in West Virginia go to 1 800 gambler.net pitching preview for today's main slate. Kevin Gosman comes in with the highest salary on Fandall. He checks in at 11 1 followed by Jesus Lazardo at 10,000. Freddy Peralta checks in at 93 with Max Scherzer at 9200. Nobody else above 8,000 on this slate. And even though it's just four games, all those guys are pretty fun. I have had fun with all those guys at some point throughout this year. And there's also a value play like, but despite that, I think that Kevin Gosman has to be the top guy. He's at home facing a banged up brewers offense right now. I think he needs to be number one, despite the lofty salary at 11,100 dollars and brewers lacking one of their best hitters right now in William Domus. The active roster without him has just a 99 a WRC plus against righties with a 24% strikeout rate and they don't get a ton of fly balls. The fly ball aspect is good for Gosman because he has struggled with hard contact this year. It's been a big flaw for him thus far. The hard hit rate for Gosman across 11 starts is 44%. That's why he's had some underwhelming starts. Even in those underwhelming starts, though, the strikeouts have been there. He has a 32% strikeout rate overall with a 6% walk rate. He has had eight plus strikeouts in six of 11 stars and he had seven in two others. So if we put Gosman up against an offense that's healthier or more dangerous than the brewers are right now, I'd be okay pivoting, but the brewers aren't that at the moment. I have Gosman projective for 8.4 strikeouts that is the tops on the slate by a good margin. So I'll put in there myself too. Even on a good slate, Kevin Gosman is number one. Now, number two is a value play and I do think this guy might not be second overall for me straight up, but once you account for his low salary at $7,500, he is. That guy is Joe Musgrove and he's had some bumpy starts so far this year. His overall year rate is 5.64, but I don't think that's an accurate representation of how he has pitched. And he started to pick things up recently, got a great matchup for tonight. So I want to be on him in DFS as he faces the Marlins. That is the best matchup on the slate here. They have an 87 WRC plus against righties with a 32% fly ball rate and a 122 ISO. They're not a big strikeout team, but they also don't draw many walks, which allows pitchers to get deep in games against them. I had the Marlins money line last night and regretted it for most of that game. They did win eventually, but like, you're kind of thinking, why did I have any faith this offense could score a single run because they did not until the night thinning. That's kind of the offense I've got right now. Musgrove was injured open this year, but it was his toe. I guess I don't care a ton about that. His velocity so far is actually higher this year than it was last year. He's throwing fewer sinkers, which we always love. He's also cutting back on his sliders, which is not as fun, but hasn't been a terrible thing because he's been doing this now for 17 starts dating back to last year. And I'm okay taking a broader sample on Musgrove because the B-Low has still been good so far this year. In that 17 star sample, he has a 3.71 skill interactive ERA with a 24% strikeout rate, and he has led a very little hard contact. When you put that in a matchup like this, the floor is very high. I think he has a path to a good ceiling too. So I'm going to buy into Musgrove before we see him fully pop off this year. I think the matchup is conducive to that and it's a small slate. For $7,500, that's more than enough to make Musgrove after considering his salary. Second, pretty easily. Let's say you just want to be off of Gosmin for today, I think you pivot to Musgrove as being your top guy on this slate. I feel good about that personally. I know it has not worked out yet, but I think the building blocks for a good game are very much there for Musgrove. So Gosmin won Musgrove 2. The third slot is between Max Scherzer and Jesus Elizardo. I like both these guys. I'm going to rank Scherzer higher. His salary is lower, which does help. $800 lower. He's at $92 whereas Elizardo is at $10,000. But Elizardo is close enough if you are wary of Scherzer, which is justifiable for sure. Scherzer, though, coming off his best start of the year, he held the Rockies to one run at Coors Field across seven innings. He had eight strikeouts there and a 15.7% swinging strike rate. Now, that is a great matchup for a righty and he's facing the Phillies today. That's a lot tougher than facing the Rockies regardless of where it is. 103 WRC plus for the Phillies against righties, but they will strikeout. 24% strikeout rate for them. So I don't know if Scherzer is fully back, but his salary is not fully back up, so that helps. He's at home, which is nice. I've got him projected for 6.13 strikeouts, which is legitimately identical down to the hundreds place, identical to Elizardo's mark. So I don't blame you if you want to go Elizardo, but I do give this light edge to Scherzer. To me, it is going to be Gosmin 1, Musgrove 2, Scherzer 3, Elizardo 4, and I think there might be a tier difference between Musgrove and Scherzer after you consider the salary on Musgrove for today. That's pitching. Let's talk now about stacks. Stacks, I do think are a bit harder because a lot of the offenses that are in good matchups are bad offenses. I don't think that's entirely true with Arizona, and they're going to be the top stack for today. They're facing Conor Siebold, and Siebold, I think we got a large on the sample here to say we can stack against him. We're up to six longer outings for Siebold as he stretches out. Five starts, one longer relief outing. It's a profile we can stack against in those six outings. He has a 5.39 skill interactive ERA with a 14% strikeout rate. He's letting up enough hard contact and fly balls to be good with stacking against him. ERA is 6.23. That's not something I want to hold against him because four of those six appearances have been a coarse field. But for Siebold, the most recent road start was in Arlington against the Rangers. Very good offense, but let up five earned runs and two homers there. Arizona's offense not as good as Texas's. They're not great, but they're not bad. They got an above average WRC plus at 102 against Reides. The RISO is 178, which you'll take. They have guys who will steal. That's less of a factor against the Rockies because they are pretty good at suppressing that. But I do think there's upside here. I'm going to put the Diamondbacks at the top of my list as a result and feel pretty good about that. Now if we're using Gosmin, we got to find some salary savers. And Jake McCarthy is still batting lower in the order for the Diamondbacks. Probably going to bat eighth for today. And that can make him tough to swallow for 26 because that's not a super low salary. But I am definitely interested in McCarthy. He is very willing to run. He's become a rabbit recently. He has five steals this past three games. He has not hit the ball well since coming back up, but his expected Woba is above 300. That's bad. That's not saying this is a good thing. I'm saying he's not a total dud, I guess, to hit her pretty close, but not quite there. So I'm willing to give him a spin here for DFS because in his past, he's had better data as far as the hitting stuff goes. And we know there is a baseline for upside with the running. So McCarthy get a bit low in the order, but low salary. You want extra flexibility to get to Gosmin if you're using him. I think that McCarthy can be a good route for doing so. Number two is going to be the Nets. They are in a facing a pitcher in a revenge game. And Taiwan Walker, who gets to face his old team, and Walker did have a nice outing last week. We held the Braves two, just three runs across six and two thirds innings, but I am going to stack against him here. I stacked against Walker for that Braves game too, which obviously did not go well, but it could have been good because he had just one strikeout and one walk, which means he let up 26 balls in play in that game. The hard hit rate was 39%. Let up a couple barrels in that game too. And he wasn't killing worms or anything. Walker has been throwing more cutters and fewer sliders recently. He has a six star sample doing that, and his hard hit rate allowed in that time is 46%, which is the highest number on the main slayer for today. His skill interactive ERA is 4.91. He has a 17% strikeout rate, and that combination of the hard contact and the low strikeout rate has led to some rough starts. He got just two outs against the Giants, let up four and runs before being yanked there. He let up eight earned runs on three home runs of the Dodgers. Facing the Mets tonight, 107 WRC plus against Righties. I think it's wise to stack against Walker here and see if we can potentially get some regression after what he did last week. I think now's a good time to buy into Francisco Lindor, the salary not super low at 35, but also not restricted by any means. But the past two weeks, Lindor has a 49% hard hit rate. His ISO is 255, and he does steel bases. That's important because the power for Lindor has not been there this year as much as in the past. If you were to add that back in on top of the steels, he becomes the guy you really want to build around in DFS. The salary 35 is not super low by any means, but I think it's very appropriate. I want to build around guys like Lindor, like Corbin Carroll who have two sources of upside via the steels and the power. Lindor getting back to that right now. I think now is the right time to buy in, given the bad at ball data is improving. We have seen that translate to some decent results as far as the batting goes as well. The third stack today is going to be the Rockies. It's not a course, so I'd really rather not do this. In fact, I hate doing it, but it's a thin slate, lot of good pitchers. They kind of want a third by default. They're facing Zach Davies who is, it is just his fourth start back. He's got knock around quite a bit so far. His expected ERA is 5.87, issuing too many walks, not enough strikeouts. He is still doing a good job with contact suppression, and that's how Davies has gotten by in the past. He could do that again here, but the Rockies are better against righties than lefties. They're WRC plus 93 against righties versus 66 against lefties, so the shutout last night, not great, but at least it's a righty now. They don't have the worst play discipline numbers. If you want to pivot elsewhere, can't blame you for a second. I would give thought to the Padres against Lazardo because he does let up a lot of fly balls. Don't want to stack against him because I like him a lot, but that's probably where I'd turn next. Those fly balls could get him in trouble against him that does have some powerful bats in the Padres, but I think the Rockies, the slightly better route here, despite the fact it kind of makes you want to vomit, just thinking about doing so. There are two guys in this team who have shown both power and speed against righties. Again, that's what we want to build around at DFS this year. Those guys are Ryne McMahon and Brenton Doyle. McMahon has been on a power binge lately, but also has four steals this year. Doyle strikes out a ton, but when you're facing a guy like Davies, that's not as big of a concern. He has seven steals in the major so far, and a 288 ISO and a small sample against righties. Then you got Nolan Jones, who just came up. He ran a decent amount of the minors. He's hit the ball well so far in the majors. There is some uncertainty on him if Charlie Blackman comes back today. I would assume that Jones sticks around because he got called up before Blackman went on the bereavement list. He probably will stay up, but if he does, you would have Jones, McMahon, and Doyle as all guys with two inferior sources of upside in this matchup. I think that's pretty attractive. Some uncertainty of the roster if Blackman does come back, but I do think that McMahon, Doyle, and Jones, all guys who give us multiple sources of upside, which is what we should want in DFS right now. Dinger calls for this main slate. I'm going to go with the boring one with Peter Lanzo, because it's Peter Lanzo, facing Taiwan Walker, letting him a lot of hard contact. Walker doesn't have extreme platoon splits, so let's just make it easy on ourselves and go with Peter Lanzo for the first Dinger call. It's Peter Lanzo. He's great matchup, so Peter Lanzo. The fun one, I will go Nolan Jones. Good power numbers in the minors. Obviously, the AAA park for the Rockies is also pretty offensive-friendly, so have to take it with a grain of salt, but Davies lets up a lot of balls and play. Jones can strike out too much, so that does help him there, but I think he's at least interesting. We'll go with Peter Lanzo and Nolan Jones as he Dinger calls on the main slate for today. Let's talk briefly about the late slates and that. Again, it's not up yet, so I actually don't know if they'll have a slate up, but there is the all-day slate. If you want to translate some of these thoughts over to that hypothetically, but let's talk about it quickly, and then if you want to consider these teams with the all-day slate, or if you find a slate elsewhere, let's just talk about it. Pitcher for the three games tonight, I would be highest on Frumber Valdez. There are a lot of guys here you consider, like Chris Sale, Hunter Green, Pablo Lopez, Tanner Bebe. You can consider five of the six guys legitimately, but Valdez does the best job of combining strikeouts with very good ground ball data. I'm a big Hunter Green guy, but he's on the road against a lower strikeout team that hurts his upside. Could definitely consider Chris Sale as well, but I prefer Valdez. He'd be my number one pitcher for the after-hours slate. As for stacks, I've been on Reed Detmerz as a pitcher quite often this year. In fact, his last two starts, I've been on him, but he's letting up too much hard contact still, which means we could go at the Astros against him. They have a 182 iso against lefties, a 42% fly ball rate. They're not the team I'd want to face if I are Reed Detmerz, because of the way that they mesh against him. Some good stack in the Astros here, and they'd be my favorite stack on the after-hours slate. The second stack is tough. I think you could consider the Red Sox against Hunter Green. He is coming off an amazing start. His second start was gone. Six plus innings and let up no hits, which is pretty impressive to do that twice in, I think, less than a year, around a year. Again, I like what he's doing. He gets a lot of strikeouts, but there's still a lot of fly balls, still a lot of hard contact here. There's at least a path to the Red Sox being good play for tonight. I'd give a slide edge to the Red Sox as the number two stack behind the Astros over the Twins against Tanner Bybee. Bybee is pitching really well as past three games with an alternate approach, so don't want to go there. Don't really want to stack Cleveland because they stink, despite the fact that Pablo Lopez has let up a bit too much hard contact recently. To me, stacking would be Astros, then Red Sox with Fromber Valdez as the top pitcher on the after-hours slate. That's all we got here for today on The Solo Shot. Back once again tomorrow for a fuller slate, as always so. Make sure you are subscribed to the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed to get these shows right as they are posted wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Fandwall Podcast Network at Fandwall Podcast. Want to thank you all for tuning in for today? Good luck to you with your MLB DFS lineups, and we'll talk to you once again tomorrow to preview Friday's slate. This has been The Solo Shot right here on the Fandwall Podcast Network.