We have a true split slate on Thursday with five early and five main slate games. Keep and eye on the weather in Chicago as well as the various windy conditions with 15-20 mph situations blowing both in and out of more stadiums that we typically see.
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EARLY SLATE
Oakland Athletics at RHP Dylan Bundy – 5.3 implied runs
Wowzers, what an implied run total and with the early season troubles of RHP Dylan Bundy who allowed a league leading 41 homeruns last season, this one is going to be short and sweet. Of course the crown jewel will be “the other” Khris Davis who parked his sixth and seventh dingers on Wednesday night off of LHP Josh Rogers. Not for nothing, but over his last 1,000 matchups against same-handed pitching, Davis has an otherworldly .304 ISO and a .378 wOBA. Yeah, he could go ohfer but damn, this is hard to stay away from.
We have several other Oakland batsmen with a .200+ ISO over the last two plus seasons against right-handed pitching with Matt Chapman and surprisingly Chad Pinder along with solid options in Jurickson Profar, Kendrys Morales and even Ramon Laureano and those points from the bottom of the lineup, count just the same as they do from the heart of the order.
We have plenty of pivots with Seattle boasting a 5.3 implied run total and boasting a league leading 109 runs, keep an eye on Jay Bruce who left early on Wednesday with a sore Achilles, but he has seven homeruns already this season and with the whole darn team ON FIRE we have some nice options against RHP Jorge Lopez who has allowed a 1.34 HR/9 over the last 144 lefties he has faced with a woeful 13.9 K% and a 10.4 BB% so Dan Vogelbach is very much in play, even with his rising price tag.
Not to bury the lede but Seattle’s host team the Kansas City Royals have a 4.8 implied run total and there looks to be some serious wind blowing out to left-center in the 18-22mph range and RHP Mike Leake has seen his strikeouts trending up, but has the old dog really learned a new trick? He doesn’t walk many with an elite 4.5 BB% over his last 1,600 batters faced with a stellar 51.5 GB%, but he does allow a lot of balls in play and strange things do happen in baseball. The Royals are thin in the power department, but they more than make up for it with speed on the base paths and if they get some runners on, we could see them legging it out to home from first or second base with some timely hits.
MAIN SLATE
Boston Red Sox vs RHP Aaron Sanchez – 5.6 implied runs
The BoSox have the highest implied run total on the main slate and RHP Aaron Sanchez is a solid real life pitcher, but his 16.2 BB% against his last 309 opposite-handed hitters gives us a reason to target the Red Stockings and Sanchez has only punched-out 17.2% of the last 332 righties he has faced so he is not really equipped to get out of jams.
Both teams were off on Wednesday, but that should favor the Boston hitters more and we can looked to literally the entire lineup in all formats as a full 5-man stack to some excellent on-offs. Check out the MLB DFS Strategy show on the Awesemo.com YouTube channel and podcast network with more takes from Josh Engleman and Dave Loughran along with the Deeper Dive at 5pm featuring Adam Scherer and of course Live Before Lock during the last hour before contests go live.
As always, you can reach out to me in Awesemo.com Premium Slack or on Twitter @EMacDFS if you have any questions.
Good Luck Gamers! ~ EMac
