Thursday, Aug. 13 is getaway day with a five-game “main slate” beginning at 4 p.m. EST. Before you lock in your MLB DFS lineups and MLB DFS picks, make sure to check out check out Awesemo’s DFS baseball MLB rankings and projections.
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Greetings, Gamers! We a short five-game main slate with a 4 p.m. EST start, which is the same as the NBA slates.
Similar to last year I will be providing a review of one stack for each of the day’s slates. Some of these short-slate options will be good for the full-game set, others will be more contrarian and better suited for the mini-game sets.
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Main-Slate Picks
Philadelphia Phillies vs. RHP Thomas Eshelman – 5.8 implied runs
Let’s make it three days in a row and hope this time is the charm. The Phillies get another great matchup against the Orioles, this time with Eshelman as the starter. Five days ago, Eshelman made a spot start against the Nationals, throwing 57 pitches. Power has been an issue, and he has allowed two home runs this season in just 7.1 innings of work. In his last 76 righty/lefty matchups, he is allowing a 2.55 HR/9, and it gets worse with 3.16 HR/9 compiled by the last 114 same-handed hitters. Combined with his low strikeout and ground ball rates, he is a gas can just waiting for a match.
Bryce Harper, Didi Gregorius and Jay Bruce all have .230-plus ISOs in lefty/righty matchups over the last two seasons. The same can be said for J.T. Realmuto and Rhys Hoskins when facing same-handed hurlers.
Late-Slate Picks
Chicago Cubs vs. LHP Brett Anderson and RHP Corbin Burnes – TBD implied runs
The Brewers are going to be rolling out a lefty/righty combo on Thursday in the Windy City. Speaking of wind, we are slated to have a 10-mph breeze coming in from center field during the game with 80-degree temperatures.
The interesting thing about Anderson is that he does not allow much power. Over his last 1,100 batters faced, he has ceded a .150 ISO with a 1.24 HR/9 to righties and a 0.54 HR/9 to same-handed batsmen. The ground ball rate around 50% also tends to keep the crooked numbers at bay. Still, we only have four teams in action on the two-game late slate, so pickings are slim.
One glimmer of hope to when Burnes comes in is that he cannot harness his fastball and loses command. Burnes has been a lights-out reliever, but the conversion into becoming a starter has been a rocky one. In a combination of starts and relief appearances he has an amazing 34.0% strikeout rate versus the last 259 same-handed hitters faced, but he is allowing 1.91 HR/9. Against the last 179 lefties it is 2.13 HR/9 with a 20.1% strikeout rate and a dreadful 13.4% walk rate.
Kyle Schwarber was scratched on Wednesday with a sore knee and Kris Bryant is dealing with a sore wrist, so we could see a thinned out Cubs lineup. Even so, we still have plenty of options to do some home run hunting with Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, Willson Contreras and, for differentiation, Ian Happ batting ninth.
As always, you can reach out to me in Awesemo.com Premium Slack or on Twitter @EMacDFS if you have any questions or want to discuss anything MLB DFS related.
