Greetings Gamers! We have a couple of games in the six o’clock hour and nine games on the “main” slate, so let’s see what treasures we can find!
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EARLY EVENING SLATE
Cleveland Indians vs RHP Ivan Nova – 5.3 implied runs
While I would rather pick on RHP Felix Hernandez the Yankees are not likely to have the requisite number of left-handed hitters in the lineup, so I will happily turn to Cleveland squaring off against RHP Ivan Nova.
Over the last 400 batters he has faced who have been swinging the stick from the left-side of the plate, he has allowed a .380 wOBA, .220 ISO and just 11.9 K% with an overall 9.3 SwStrk% so we know that the ball is going to be in play a fair amount.
Cleveland has three switch-hitters in the top half of their lineup in Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez and Carlos Santana which is pretty smooth as they all have an excellent track record against right-handed pitching both for contact, high walk rates and power. We can augment things with Carlos Gonzalez, Jake Bauers and Jason Kipnis with Leonys Martin likely missing a second game with a sore hamstring.
MAIN SLATE
Tampa Bay Rays vs RHP Merrill Kelly – 4.4 implied runs
RHP Merrill Kelly has had a winding path to The Show havening been a 37th round selection out of high school, choosing to go to college for two seasons and try to improve his draft stock and getting selected in the 22nd round, going back to college yet again for a year and ultimately being drafted in the 8th round of the 2010 draft by the Tampa Bay Rays (full circle!). He then spent five seasons working his way through the Rays farm system capping out in 2014 with the AAA Durham Bulls. The next detour was five years in the Korean League before finally getting his chance with the Arizona Diamondbacks this year as a 30-year old rookie.
While Tampa Bay does not have too many potential All-Stars on their roster, they do have a much improved and deeper lineup than they have yielded in the past. Brandon Lowe and Tommy Pham are expensive, but we can find some salary savings with Ji-Man Choi, Yandy Diaz, Nathaniel Lowe and Kevin Kiermaier and what should be one of the least popular stacks on Monday night.
LATE SLATE
Los Angeles Dodgers vs RHP Kevin Gausman – 4.1 implied runs Please note: there is conflicting starting pitcher information between Kevin Gausman and Max Fried, this will be updated accordingly when we have official word of who is starting Monday – if it ends up being Fried, then Hernandez, Turner, Muncy, Bellinger and potentially Verdugo for differentiation would be the preferred late slate plays.
Cody Bellinger has been dealing with a sore shoulder that kept him out of action this weekend, but he is trending towards being ready on Monday night. Joc Pederson also got the day off Sunday, so he too should be back in the mix and we can round out things with Max Muncy and Justin Turner while utilizing Alex Verdugo and Corey Seager as differentiation options. Just keep in mind that Seager has been looking rusty after his long injury layoff missing the better part of last season.
While this is a recommended stack for our two game late slate, I am not racing to take on RHP Kevin Gausman on the full slate with so many other options.
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