 Just four games on tonight's late for daily fantasy baseball and despite that I still think there are pretty good options both for pitching and for stacking They're not going to be as robust as usual Obviously with just a total pitch is available for tonight But I do still think it's a slate that I feel good playing on most nights now that does not mean I'm going to get to three pitchers to recommend But it does say to me the two I'm recommending I do feel pretty good about we'll break down Who those guys are why I like them how to rank them and much more to get you ready for Thursday night Welcome on into the solo shot. That's right here on the fan dual podcast network. I am Jim Sanis I am a digital media managing editor for a fan dual research You know breakdown that's for a game named slate with locks up for 640 p.m. Easter again It's 640 p.m. Eastern is locked for today. I want to give a big. Thank you to Tom and Becky of filling it for me yesterday I was out due to COVID but back for today still feeling a bit under the weather So apologies if it sounds a bit odd, but Recovering pretty well. So happy to be back with you once again for today to talk about again pretty decent four-game slate Check out Tom on Twitter at DFS underscore Tom to thank him for filling in for me yesterday and last week as well As far as weather for today, there is a chance of rain in Philadelphia for the Phillies and the Nationals They'll be I think able to play through it I would guess but check back on that one later Boston's rain odds are higher for the Red Sox and the Royals There is at least some risk there of a postponement. So check back on that one as well I'd say Red Sox and Royals is kind of the key game to monitor for tonight. It's not a huge priority it is her pitching a bit but For stacking not as high in my list So check them back back on that one later on to make sure there won't be interruptions to disrupt our potential pitcher Or tell we'll talk about who that is and much more here in just one second But first a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast Wherever you get your podcast you can check us out on Apple podcast Spotify Wherever you get your podcast you can find us if you like what you hear leave us a five-star rating And as always the video versions of the show do go up on the Fandall YouTube page and over on Fandall TV plus as well Speaking of Fandall research the link for this week's Fandall research free roll is now available at fandall.com Slash research it revolves around Saturday's main slate for the English Premier League as they return to the pitch Locke is at 10 a.m. Eastern on Saturday running these free rolls every week through the end of NFL season to celebrate their Transition to Fandall research and to thank all the loyal number fire users to get the link and to enter go to Fandall.com slash research and look for the story on the front page eligibility Restrictions apply will be talking about the EPL match week one with Austin Cass uncovering the spread later on today Pitching preview for this Thursday main site only three guys has salaries above $8,000 Those are Clayton Kershaw at $10,700 with Aaron Nola at 10,000 flat James Paxton is 97 now Kershaw's coming off the IEL and That's gonna matter a lot when we when it comes to deciding whether we can actually get to a third pitcher for tonight We'll talk about him later though. Let's focus here on Nola and Paxton because to me I think they're the top two guys and kind of the only two guys I want to use and which guy you prefer depends on the game type if you want safety for a cash game I prefer Nola if you want upside I'd go to James Paxton So let's talk through Paxton first because I assume you all are more likely to be playing tournaments and cash games Which I get so totally understandable there. They're more fun. So let's talk to Paxton first He doesn't deal with the rain in Boston. So again check back on that later We'll go to Nola in a second Paxton facing the Royals not a great offense against lefties with a 92 WRC plus and a 145 ISO they've also got pretty poor play discipline stats and That means not a lot of walks not a great strikeout rate and that leads to Few drawn-out plate appearances where they're having you know six seven pitches for plate appearance That's a good thing for Paxton because you never really know how long he'll last That's why he's the upside play but not the floor play the upside should be there though Because Paxton has a 27% strikeout rate this year He has a 3.73 skill interact to be array. It's hard to rate. It's about average a little bit above it at 39% It's fine enough when the plate discipline numbers are as good as they are Paxton hasn't had many big games recently But he also hasn't faced many high strikeout teams now the Royals are not that either but they are a bit above average So Paxton has a good enough ceiling where I rank him first return is slightly above Nola as for Nola It's not like he has zero upside. It's just not as much as Paxton has and that's due to his mansion Now that may sound weird because he faced the Nationals who just got no hit last night But they do a good job avoiding strikeouts in that game last night and Michael Lorenzen pitching in his vans There were 124 pitches and had just five strikeouts. So obviously an amazing performance kudos to him. That's awesome But that's kind of emblematic of what the Nationals do They have just a 20 strikeout rate against righties this year, which is the lowest number on the slate So that's my Paxton. I think despite the fact that Nat's got no hit last night I think the Paxton is better upside than Nola despite the fact Nola is facing them But Nola doesn't have plenty of other stuff in his favor including other parts of the matchup because the Nationals have a WRC plus of 86 against righties with a 134 iso with a 6 walk rate So similar to the Royals, they are not having drawn out plate appearances Nola has started to throw his curve ball more again recently He has a 28 strikeout rate and 13 starts doing that's a slightly above Paxton His skill interactivity rates a bit better at 3.56 and he has had some big gains in that time too He had 12 strikeouts twice in that span But both those games came against teams that strike out more than the Nationals do So I don't want to overrate those two blow-ups too much the efficiency for nola is very nice And it's why I actually have nola projected for slightly more strikeouts in Paxton I just believe that the best case scenario like the 90th 100th percentile outcome favors James Paxton Now we might not need that first night. So That'd be a case for using nola and tournament or in cash games or in tournaments as well, but I do still think they've been looking for like the most raw upside. It's Paxton won nola two But really kind of put them however you want Like I mentioned before I honestly can't talk myself into a third pitcher on this late Kershaw would be my next ranked, but I'm not going to use him due to the limitations We'll discuss in things to watch you could maybe go Patrick Corbin because of pitch count He could maybe go to Zach LaTel, but I don't know how stretched out LaTel is So I'm honestly just going to stick to those two for today There's not much point recommending or talking about someone I I can't in good faith recommend So to me it really does revolve around just nola and Paxton for tonight depending on Your game type. Well, again, we'll talk about Kershaw later on First let's dive into the stacks and for stacks. I think the Dodgers and Reyes stand out from the pack tonight I like the Dodgers a bit more. So let's start with them first and then we'll dig into the Reyes later on The Dodgers are facing tie block block is transitioning from the bullpen into the rotation and He wasn't lighting it up as a reliever He also didn't thrive as a starter on AAA before getting called back up So it's hard to expect block to really beast out as a starter when that's the case He has made three starts so far and two of them have been very good While one has been bad But those have been based on the matches where he shut down the marlins and the athletics and he struggled against the cardinals The Dodgers are much more like the cardinals than they are like the a's They have a 118 and wrc plus against lefties with a 218 iso and a 43 flat ball rate And block has also led up a 49 percent our hit rate across those three starts So I think you could be in some trouble here facing off against this Dodgers lineup And it does make the Dodgers standouts on this short slate Now I talked a couple weeks ago about uh being skeptical of Kike Hernandez and his return to the Dodgers I'm less so now honestly. He's playing entire games. He's not striking out at all. I'm not gonna not leave him for pinch hitters And his bad at ball stats are much better with the Dodgers than they were with the Red Sox It was also Kike Hernandez bobblehead night last night in boston Maybe the narrative carries over to the next day who could say I'll get the narrative committee to Give a full ruling on that one And I would still rank Kike behind chris taylor and i'm at or sario among the righties But I am much more receptive to Hernandez now than I was before So having three value plays in the Dodgers who are very very viable makes it a lot easier to stack them Even while going to nola and paxton as our pitchers for today As of the rays are at home tonight typically that's a big downgrade for them because it's cooler there with the roof around 70 degrees and When you've got games in the 90s, that's tough But there are no warm games on tonight's plate. So that doesn't really matter at all So I think the rays make a lot of sense They're facing matthew liberator and I actually use liberator When he first came up from AAA the velocity was good. He looked good But the velocity has come down quite a bit since that start It's down specifically over his past seven starts and then the peripherals have sunk in that time as well Across those seven starts. He has a 5.99 skill interactive. Yeah ray with an 11 strikeout rate His heart rate rate allowed is 46 percent and liberator has an even worse. Yeah ray at 7.76 He's had some tough matchups in there for sure But the rays are that as well with a 123 w rc plus against lefties and a 196 iso so I wanted to buy the liberator earlier on when he first came up But I think based on what we've seen here recently over a large enough sample of seven starts We can feel okay Going away from that and stacking against him here for tonight With it being a lefty, we should get Curtis mead in the lineup for the rays Mead has started a couple games and he did play the full game both times Didn't it for a ton of power down in AAA But his heart hit rate there was 42 percent and he had a really good plate discipline numbers His salary is $2,100 So if the sour were higher, I could be a bit more nitpicky with me not showing a ton of power in AAA But his sour is very very low. So I'm not gonna be picky I again, I expect to play the entire game get about probably six seven somewhere in there for $2,100 on this lineup That makes a lot of sense to me So Curtis mead another good value play again Making it easier to get to nola and paxton and still have your cake needed to with guys like mookie bats Next up for me and stacked to be the Phillies They're facing Patrick Corbin and Corbin has had his good starts and his bad ones since the struggles at the start of the year But the underlying numbers overall say we can't stack against him with Philadelphia Corbin has made 13 starts since he re-upped his forcing fastball usage His era is 5.45 despite some really nice outings His skill interactive era nearly matches that of 5.03 He has a low strikeout rates and a 44 percent already rate allowed Corbin is still getting some ground balls and that may be part of why the Phillies are lower for me than the other two teams But I also like the other offenses more and Corbin has a higher strikeout rate than both block and liberator So the Phillies are a solid stack But I definitely think they're third on this list for me tonight It is a solid third though and one I would not feel bad using it all Now I do want to dig into Bryce Harper here quickly I know it's a lefty he's facing but Harper traditionally has always said lefty as well And I do think he's starting to get his group back a bit His issue for this year has been power but since the all-star break his iso is 190 It's 135 for the full season. So much better the second half It's hard to hit rate is 49 percent that time with a 14 percent barrel raise And the fly ball rate recently about the past week or so has really started to creep back up again So Harper has always said lefty as well Facing lefty here. I think now is a great time to buy into him here at 3400 dollars So among the the bilo candidates here on the on the Phillies between Harper and Turner Much more inclined to go Harper at 3400 dollars because I do think we've seen some signs of some legit turnaround there Not a post turner, but like I think Harper my preferred guy between those two Things to watch for tonight a couple things are working against Clayton Kershaw here And that's why I couldn't quite get to him as a pitcher The first thing is pitch count because he went 60 in a simulated game over the weekend So he could be around 70 or 75, which is not a ton And we know they're they're willing to be conservative with Kershaw But Dave Roberts also said that his shoulder is not perfect yet, which is concerning like why you're starting if that's not the case So the matchup for Kershaw is unreal and Kershaw has pitched very well would hold you this year But I just don't think I can justify putting him in a lineup with all these things converging here I'd be totally fine stack in the rent socks Uh, they'll be facing Alec Marsh as the bulk reliever behind an opener tonight Marsh is better than his results thus far with a 6.75 e r a but You know again, I think he's better than that. He can't get some strikeouts Uh, it does walk a lot of guys and have a ton of balls of play. That's why the rent socks aren't higher Uh in the stacking list for me, but there's no real reason to avoid them here The final picture we have not yet discussed is ackletell He says in the cardinals who are low strikeout offense and he's also a low strikeout pitcher with not a robust pitch count That's why I can't get him as a pitcher even as a pivot from those top two guys But let's tell us pitch pretty well both in the rotation and is a reliever this year I'd rather stack against him than use him as a pitcher But i'm pretty okay with doing neither if at all possible fortunately He's kind of the one true like neutral purgatory guy who I think is sitting in that that between zone for tonight Let's finish up here some dinger calls for today. The boring one. Mookie betts has insane numbers against lefties this year I know he's like a small guy, but like look up his power numbers against lefties. They are absolutely bananas He's facing a lefty for tonight. I gotta do it So mookie betts the boring home run call for today and the fun when I mentioned Curtis me didn't have great power numbers in triple a but again He was making really hard contact probably in a bad of a good spot in the order good matchup for him too So why not let's roll with it here. Let's make mookie bets and Curtis mead our home run calls for today That's all we got here for today on the solo shot We'll be back with you once again tomorrow breaking down fridays means they should be a pretty big one So be sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed wherever you get your podcast to get that Right as it goes live and check this out over at fan dual youtube fandoms youtube page and over at fan dual tv plus If you got any questions for me, I'm on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s You can also follow fan dual research at fan dual research want to thank you all for tuning in for today Good luck. See you there a lot of search tonight. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow This has been the solo shot right here on the fan dual podcast network