The following Spotlight Pitchers were selected by Awesemo.com writer Jake Hari. For more analysis on the slate, check out Awesemo’s Rankings and Ownership Projections.
Gerrit Cole ($13,100 DK/$11,100 FD)
Cole is a little bit overpriced on DraftKings, but because of the concerns I have with the rest of the high-priced options, he makes for a solid spend-up SP1 if you have the salary to get up to these top guys. Despite some regression over the last month or so, he’s still missing a lot of bats lately, and his chase rate is up over his last 5 starts (34.0%). The matchup against the A’s isn’t ideal as they have some lefty power bats, but Cole is striking out nearly 30% of righties this year and should get to face 5-6 of them tonight. Add in the fact that he will both 1. will be able to get to 100 pitches (if things go well) and 2. doesn’t have velocity concerns and you have a rock-solid SP1.
Eduardo Rodriguez ($8,400 DK/$8,000 FD)
Rodriguez is coming off an impressive outing against the Nationals in which he struck out 6 in 6 innings, allowing no runs with only 1 walk. When you look deeper, it becomes even more encouraging as he posted a 16.7% Swinging-Strike rate with a 37% O-Swing rate on 84 pitches. On the road against lefties this year, Texas has the highest K-rate (25.8%) with a .119 ISO and a putrid 70 wRC+. With few mid-priced options to feel great about, E-Rod provides some real upside at these prices on DraftKings and FanDuel and should have some run support with the Red Sox having the highest total on the board at nearly 6 runs.
Jose Urena ($6,900 DK/$7,100 FD)
Urena will get a scary Brewers team that has a bunch of lefty power at the top, but he’s had a nice 5-start stretch, posting a 37.4% O-Swing rate and continuing to be solid versus righty bats. In 2018, Urena has an excellent 50% ground ball rate overall and he’s striking out 23.4% of righties with just a 17% Line Drive%. As mentioned above, the options today are slim and the lefties for the Brewers (Yelich, Thames, Shaw) are worrisome, but Urena has a good chance to limit the damage by inducing weak contact to the righties and (hopefully) picking up a few strikeouts along the way.
