Greetings Gamers! We have a great day of MLB DFS action ahead of us with games beginning at 2:10pm ET and multiple turbo and express slates as we head to the 7pm ET “main” slate. Let’s see what we can uncover for our own personal advantage with our lineup Saturday lineup construction.
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EARLY SLATE
Minnesota Twins vs RHP Dan Straily – 5.8 implied runs
While everyone will be flocking to this matchup, it is going to be very difficult to not have a fair number of Twins in our lineups with the early Saturday afternoon DFS action. RHP Dan Straily is a perfect fit for the Orioles pitching staff as he is great at giving up runs (Sorry Adam) – with an 8.59 ERA and a 1.84 WHIP through four appearances and 14.2 innings. While he has ceded “just” six walks and those are erased somewhat by his six punchouts – the SEVEN homeruns and TWENTY-SEVEN baserunners allowed are just plain awful.
Since the beginning of last season, the following Twinkies have a .200+ ISO against right-handed pitching: Nelson Cruz, Eddie Rosario, C.J. Cron, Mitch Garver, Jonathan Schoop, Jorge Polanco and then Max Kepler is “struggling” with an elite .190 ISO himself…. Giddyup!
AFTERNOON SLATE
Washington Nationals vs LHP Eric Lauer – 4.6 implied runs
The key for the Nationals will be having both Ryan Zimmerman and Yan Gomes in the lineup in the 4:05pm ET game after last night’s 7pm game… they play again on Sunday at 1:35pm ET – if Gomes is out, then look to Kurt Suzuki if he is behind the dish and Zimmerman will likely play either Saturday or Sunday, though not likely both – so keep that in mind. The crown jewel of course is Anthony Rendon and DO NOT BE AFRAID to roll with Juan Soto in the lefty/lefty matchup as in his career (which started in The Show last year) he has a leathal .357 wOBA and a .210 ISO against fellow lefties… oh yeah, Carter Kieboom is the latest callup who is solid and semi-rookie/newcomer Victor Robles had two stolen bases on Friday and we have the venerable veteran Brian Dozier can still get it done as a noted career lefty masher.
MAIN SLATE
Chicago White Sox vs LHP Ryan Carpenter – 4.9 implied runs
Keep an eye on the weather in this game as I am writing this 16 hours before first pitch – however, LHP Ryan Carpenter had 22.1 innings last season with a 7.25 ERA, a 1.70 WHIP with EIGHT HOMERUNS and just 15 strikeouts. As Carpenter marches towards his 29th-year walking this Earth, he has been in the minors for NINE seasons with a 4.45 ERA and a 1.324 WHIP with just a 7.8 K/9 which is a whole-lotta m-e-h MEH!
If you are looking at a “heat map” of the ChiSox against southpaws for the last two seasons, it is not pretty and the standouts are of course Jose Abreu, Tim Anderson and small sample size Jose Rondon. Besides, with the poor skillset for Carpenter, we can consider James McCann who has not been great, but does have a solid history against southpaws and we may get another discount dandy we can use in our contrarian/filler stack.
LATE SLATE
Texas Rangers at RHP Mike Leake – 4.0 implied runs
Full disclosure here, we have only two games on the late slate and I will be playing both sides of this one with RHP Mike Leake as my SP2 on DraftKings and also with LHP Mike Minor filling out my squads.
If we want to target against Leake then the key will be to have some of the power hitters as one-offs or pairs in our lineups with Nomar Mazara and Joey Gallo leading the way and we can extend things with Elvis Andrus, Danny Santana, Shin-Soo Choo and Asdrubal Cabrera for a trio – on the other side we can look to the Mariners righties with the 4.2 implied run total and hope to capture the right extra base hit sequencing with runners on the pond with Mitch Haniger, Domingo Santana, Tim Beckham and Edwin Encarnacion.
Repeating myself, be sure to watch Live Before Lock on the Awesemo YouTube channel as we should have the starting lineups and can help sus out the key pairs or even get lucky with a power trio on either side, but do be aware that both pitchers are also going to be in play on the two game night cap.
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
