 Just six games on tonight's slave for Daily Fantasy Baseball, which means we've got some options that would be viable on larger slates. There's some good ones to feel solid about for sure, but beyond that, we have to dig. We have to be okay making some constellations in order to get access to pitchers and batters and stacks of the path to a really good game. I think there are some options that can feel good. We can feel good about the ceiling even if the floor may not be as great. We'll dig in here, outline those spots that would be viable on other slates, but also which red flags are least concerning. We're trying to search for upside elsewhere within our lineups for tonight. 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 here to break down Wednesday's six game main slate with lock set for 6.35pm Eastern for today. Again, lock 6.35pm Eastern on the main slate for today with just 16s available for tonight. The one weather note for this slate is that there is a chance of rain slash scattered thunderstorms in Kansas City for the Royals and the White Sox. Because they're scattered, I would guess they'll be able to play this game, but delays could mess with pitchers. So I would check back on the weather for that game later on. I have interest in a pitcher and a stack in that game. So I would check back on the weather there later on. I think they'll be good to go, but would confirm that later on closer to lock time. We'll dig into that game and much more here in just one second. But first, a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to the Numberfire Daily Fantasy Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We recorded our PGA DFS podcast for the AT&T Byron Nelson yesterday with myself and Brandon Gadoula breaking down our favorite golfers in each salary tier over on FanDuel. 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Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply, see terms at sportsbook.fanDuel.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fanDuel.com slash RG. In Massachusetts Hope is here, gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support. In New York, 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or Text-HOPE-NY. In Arizona, 1-800-NEXT-STEP or Text-NEXT-STEP to 533-42. In Connecticut, 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat. In Indiana, 1-800-NEXT-STEP in Wyoming and Kansas, 1-800-522-4700 or in Kansas, ksgamblinghelp.com. Louisiana is 1-877-770-STOP in Maryland, mdgamblinghelp.org and in West Virginia, go to 1-800-GAMBLER.net. Pitching preview for this Wednesday, I forgot what day it was, Wednesday main slate, Justin Steele headline, things here on FanDuel, his salary is $11,000 followed by Pablo Lopez at 10-6. Justin Verlander, second start off the IL is at 10-5. Jordan Montgomery at 99 with Hunter Green at 95. Seth Lugo facing Lopez at 92. We have Lanslin and Brad Keller facing each other as the others at $8,000 or higher. Now it is a tough matchup for Pablo Lopez tonight. Stays in the Padres and I don't wanna seek them out from a pitching perspective. But I think Lopez himself does enough to be the top arm of the night for tonight though. As we discussed, Lopez at a slider entering this year, we're up to seven starts on him with that slider in his arsenal. And in that time, he has a 3.18 skill interactive ERA with a 31% strikeout rate. Both those are tremendous numbers and he backs up the strikeout rate with a 14.6% swinging strike rate as well. Lopez so far has had six plus strikeouts in every single start. He has had eight plus in four of the seven. Now again, the Padres are not a great matchup. We don't wanna seek them out, but they will strike out. They have a 25% strikeout rate against Reides which is tied for the highest on the slate. I have Lopez projected for 8.0 strikeouts tonight, which means I feel fine putting him first despite the tough matchup with that in mind. So to me, Pablo Lopez is kind of the one guy who transcends the small slate and would be a guy we'd be turning to even if the slate were a bit larger. The second slide is we're gonna make a couple of constellations and one of those constellations is matchup because Hunter Green is not a good matchup. He's facing the Mets. They are not a high strikeout team and they have some power but Green is still doing some really interesting things right now and they're especially fun for DFS which I think allows us to be on Green here tonight at $9,500. The Mets this year have a 105 WRC plus against Reides and their current active roster. They have a 20% strikeout rate. So like the Padres, I'm not actually seeking them out. I just like what Green individually is doing. He was struggling a bit with walks. His first two starts this year. He had free walks in both those games which didn't allow him to go super deep into those games. In the third start, we saw Green start throwing more sliders once again which meant fewer forcing fastballs and I'm not sure if he was trying to negate the walks or what he was doing there. Maybe he just felt comfortable with that pitch but it has really worked well so far. In five start sense, Green has a 3.16 skill interactive ERA which with a 31% strikeout rate. Both those numbers are very similar to Lopez and it's not just the peripherals for Green that are good, the results have been there too. His actual ERA is 3.16. Green is still not suppressing hard contact. He's let up a 43% hard hit rate with a 43% fly ball rate which means at some point the results will likely swing against him but from a single game perspective, there is upside here. I have Green projected for 7.1 strikeouts despite the tough matchup. That is almost a full strikeout below Lopez but it's high enough where I will definitely have him in my player pool for tonight. So despite the hard contact, despite the tough matchup I do something Hunter Green deserves to be number two on our list for tonight. The top value play is gonna be Lance Lynn and I think he's the top value by a decent margin but he is in the game with a thunderstorm so make sure you check the weather in Kansas City to ensure there won't be a bunch of delays in this game. If we get the Green light in that regard, I do like Lynn despite really rough results so far this year. His ERA is 6.86. I think a lot of that is bad luck though because his skill interactive ERA is 3.70. He has a 29% strikeout rates with a 9% walk rate. Lynn does not have the best bad of all profile but it's also not the worst. It's better than Greens for example. He's led up a 39% hard hit rate with a 37% fly ball rate. I don't love either number but I don't think they justify the bad ERA that Lynn has. He's facing the Royals tonight. They have an improving WRC plus against righties. It was 67, it's now 81. It's been rising for about the past week or so. They do strike out a lot though. It's a 25% clip against righties with a 6% walk rate. I think that's enough to make Lynn viable here at $8,100. I'm not leaping to use him because the results are concerning but he worked full enough to be in play. So to me for tonight, I think that Lopez is kind of like the one, no brainer yet using on most slates kind of guy. Hunter Green making a couple of constellations but still a solid option with upside. Lynn, the top value play would not want to be here on a larger slate but here we are six game slate. Not a lot of great options. So he wants to be in the de facto value play for tonight. For stacking, it's kind of similar where we'll eventually have to make some constellations and it's gonna get a bit uncomfortable. And I think those constellations actually do begin with our first stack because the Red Sox are facing Jared Schuster and Schuster likely, it's not officially yet but it sounds like Schuster will be getting a call here and Schuster's a lefty. I'd prefer to use a righty against the Red Sox right now but Schuster didn't look so great in his first Schuster in the big leagues, walked a lot of guys in the minors too. So I think the Red Sox do need to be in our stacking consideration despite the fact Schuster is a lefty. Two starts earlier on this year for Schuster, lot of walks there, went back down to AAA and the walk issues persisted. He did work around them well because his results were good but a 16% walk rate against AAA competition is not ideal. Last year on AAA, the walks for Schuster were not as high but they were not low and he also didn't get as many strikeouts. Also wasn't a huge ground ball pitcher. The Red Sox have not had time to prepare for him. I always get a bit wary about that because again, this is not officially yet that it'll be Schuster getting the start for the Braves. So check back on that later too. So that does worry me but they are in a good spot given Schuster will let up a lot of base runners not gonna get a ton of strikeouts. I think that does allow us to be on the Red Sox here tonight despite a couple of, as mentioned, some red flags here. One downside again is that the left-handedness of Schuster, a lot of the guys we want here are lefties but Rafael Bevers does hit lefties well so that's not a concern for me in that regard. We can be okay with the two primary righties here and Kike Hernandez and Justin Turner. Bobby Dahlbeck just came back up. He's looked pretty rough from a strikeout perspective and that's relative to Bobby Dahlbeck standards not like normal person standards. Connor Wong, if he plays has been hitting the ball pretty well so far this year. So you can cobble together some righties here but I think we'll have to be okay with the lefties and utilizing them here. So get comfortable with that in advance before you pick out your Red Sox stacks. Just be aware, you'll have to be okay with some lefty and lefty matchups unless you want to fully go all in on the some lower upside righties. Our second stack I actually feel a little bit better about despite being higher on the opposing pitcher and that guy is Dean Kramer. Kramer is a guy stacked against last week and it did not go well and that's not a huge surprise because Kramer I think is a decent pitcher. He held the braves to just one run across six innings which means that it was not good from a stacking perspective but he's facing the raise tonight and I think we should go back to stacking against Kramer here and this is not, I don't think just me being stubborn. Kramer was close to getting rocked in that praise game. He led up a 53% hard hit rate in that one with two barrel balls and typically you don't do that and escape with just one earned run allowed. For the full season Kramer has led up a hard hit rate of 44% while letting up a 38% fly ball rates. He can get by with that in good matchups but the raise are not a good matchup. They have a 139 WRC plus against righties with a 241 ISO and a 42% fly ball rates. Now that's not as worrisome in this park in Baltimore as it would have been in the past so or as it would be in other spots as well but I do think the raise do enough to be a quality stack here. I will be on them tonight honestly thinking more about it. I might like them more than the Red Sox given the handiness of Schuster. So maybe we'll go Orioles one, Red Sox two in terms of ranking for stacks or sorry, raise one, Red Sox two in terms of ranking for stacks for tonight. Part of what makes the raise so fun is how good the depth of their pieces is. Like you've got the primary guys within this raised lineup who you wanna use but they're all super high salary. So you're looking for mid-range guys, lower salary guys who can actually get righties and honestly there are a lot of them here including Christian Bethancourt, Bethancourt salary 3000 which is pretty high but 19% barrel rates in a small sample this year. It was 12% last year and he stole five bases. He has not stolen yet this year but seems like that's then his range of outcomes. He does tend to bat super low in the order. So a traditionally not super high upside catcher batting eighth at $3,000. That is a lot of red flags in terms of how we wanna stack but you wanna save a little bit while stacking the raise. They really don't mind it. Let's say Siri kind of the same thing, $3,000 likely to bat seventh or so. I don't mind that. Brandon Lau I think will be on a heater here in the very near future he's 34. So I think you can stack the raise pretty easily and feel good about them here. So the raise to me a quality stack for tonight against the Orioles and Dean Kramer. Our final stack is gonna be the White Sox going up against Brad Keller. Keller definitely not the ideal kind of guy you wanna stack against because Keller walks a lot of guys and he gets ground balls. And if we're looking for upside ground balls and walks are not really the ideal rock to doing so and the White Sox offense is just okay but it's a small slate, gotta make consolation. So I think the White Sox do great out well for tonight. And Keller is in theory a very different picture than what he was because he has entirely changed up his pitch mix which should lead to different results but right now the primary thing is just a lot of walks. It leads to a 6.27 skill interactive ERA. His ground ball rate pretty much identical to what it was last year. And again, ground balls and walks don't do a ton for us in DFS. But it's better this year with the prevalence of stolen bases because a walk can turn into essentially a triple if you get a walk in a stolen base. And it also gets us access to middle relievers. Kansas City's bullpen is pretty good. So that's not a huge as big of a thing for them but just in general we want access to middle relievers who are not going to be the shutdown guys you get at the back end of the night. We may get that here. So even with the White Sox offense still not being great. I like this stack enough to roll it out here. So to me the White Sox are the number three stack despite again some pretty big concerns here. And most of the guys we'd want to use in this stack at least have some path upside against righties with Luis Roberts, Andrew Vaughn, Gavin Sheetz. They've all got some power against righties. Robert will steal two. Tim Anderson can swipe some bags. So can Andrew Benintendi. I'm still not going to be super high on Benintendi despite it being a revenge game here against the Royals but we have enough guys here to fill out a stack. So it's enough for me to feel good with them despite the fact I don't feel great with them and would not be here on a larger slate. Things to watch forward tonight. Justin Verlander making his second start off the IL here and I'm kind of curious what his pitch count will be. He went 69 in his first, in his one rehab start when 79 is versus big league start. So I've got him projected for 90 tonight. That's enough to make his strikeout projection to 6.2. It's not going to put him above. Lopez are green for me but we're getting closer to being back on him. So Verlander not in play yet but getting closer to being a viable option for us. I don't mind the idea of stacking the Orioles for tonight. They're facing Jalen Beeks as the opener and then Yanni Charinos as the bulk reliever. Charinos has had great results this year but he's letting up a lot of balls and play. The Raids bullpen is not one of their key strengths. So if you're looking for a more contrarian stack for tonight, I don't mind the Orioles being that option. I'd rank them below the Raids, below the Red Sox, below the White Sox but if you want to be a bit different and go to a team I don't think a ton of people will be on. I think the Orioles could be pretty fun from that perspective. Finally, I ranked the Braves next for stacking. They're facing Brian Beyo who is a big ground ball guy. He's got decent play discipline stats. I think he's better than what his results have been so far. So the Braves are fine but I would not be here on a larger slate. So again, top three stacks for today. I'm gonna go with the Red Sox, well the Raids, then the Red Sox and then the White Sox followed by the Orioles and then a drop off down to the Braves. Dinger calls for this Wednesday night. The boring one, I'm gonna go Brandon Lau again. Like I said, I think he's on the verge of a nice little streak here because he's barreling the ball a lot. You know, still striking out plenty but he just puts the bat on the ball. I think we could see some upside here soon. So Brandon Lau, the boring home run call for today. The fun one, I will go Connor Wong again, it's a catcher. So there's always a chance that he does not play but been hitting the ball pretty well so far this year facing a lefty. I'm not huge on Kike Hernandez or Justin Turner. So we'll go with Connor Wong at 29 as the fun home run call for tonight. That is all that we have here for today on the solo shot. Again though, if you want some PGA DFS action for this week at the AT&T Byron Nelson check out our heat check fantasy podcast over on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed while you're there. If you like what you hear leave us a five star rating as well. If you have 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 for tonight. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to break down Thursday's slate. This has been the solo shot right here on the Fandwall Podcast Network.