Written by Greg Landry | @glandry on LineStar | @GP_Landry on Twitter

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How does Mike Trout snap an 0-11 slide? By going 4-4 with a home run and four runs scored of course! The two time MVP tied his career high in home runs last night with his 41st of the season (he had previously done this in 2015). Considering there is still a month and a half left in the season, I'd say he has a pretty good chance of setting a new career high. If you missed last night's game, do yourself a favor and catch the highlights as he also made a couple of great plays in the outfield. The league's best player just keeps finding new ways to show us why he deserves that title.

We have some interesting decisions to make in the mid-tier of pitchers, as you could make strong cases for several of them but they also come with plenty of question marks. We know Berrios has tremendous upside going up against a strikeout prone Texas offense but can we trust him to perform on the road in Globe Life Park? Same with German Marquez, who is at home in Coors today, where he's been absolutely awful all season, but he gets the best possible match up against the Marlins. Can we really pay $9.4K on DraftKings for Dinelson Lamet based on a 35 inning sample? Will Eduardo Rodriguez bounce back in a strong match up against Baltimore after a rough start to August? All of these guys have incredible ROI potential but each of them have a reason to give us pause. It will be interesting to see which way the public goes and how we approach line ups accordingly today. On top of the pitching decisions, there are a lot of great places to stack today as well. I'll highlight a few of my favorite tournament stacks below but just know there are several other teams in good spots today. In fact, five of the nine games (and we have two games missing Vegas info at the moment) have an O/U of 10 or higher. Here's a look at the Vegas lines:

Weather Outlook

This is a Coors AND Globe Life Park slate. Both of those games also happen to have the best hitting conditions available. In Colorado, it's expected to be 91 degrees at first pitch. In Texas, it's expected to be 98 degrees at first pitch. Unsurprisingly, those games carry the largest totals of the day. Aside from that, we have another rain free forecast, light winds, and a few other games looking at warm temperatures in the high 80s where you can give a slight boost to the bats but nothing I would make any major adjustments on.

Stay up to date on all weather conditions and confirmed lineups as soon as they are released over on the Daily Dashboard!

Pitchers to Consider

Eduardo Rodriguez, BOS | DK: $9K, FD: $8.4K | LHP | vs. Baltimore

Before we talk about Rodriguez I'll mention (hopefully I shouldn't have to) that deGrom is the top arm today and it's not close. I didn't really see a point in talking about him given it would be stating the obvious and, as I alluded to in the intro, the mid-tier is pretty interesting on this slate so I thought I'd spend some time breaking down a couple of these guys instead.

On to Rodriguez. He's a massive -320 favorite today in a great match up against the Orioles but he's had a rough start to August including a 14:12 K/BB ratio and a 5.60 ERA in 17.2 innings. But two of those three starts were against the Yankees and Indians - both on the road. It's hard to not give him a little bit of a pass considering those match ups. Game log chasers will take one look at his recent fantasy production and move on from him, which means we have a shot at getting Rodriguez at less ownership against the Orioles. This is a great bounce back spot against a Baltimore offense which owns a .304 wOBA and .156 ISO against left-handed pitching. Even better, the Orioles have the highest strikeout rate in the league against lefties at 26.3%. They also have the fourth fewest walks on the season against lefties at just 6.7%. We know that one of Rodriguez's strengths is strikeout upside (he has a 23.2% strikeout rate this season) and we can give him an extra boost today in this match up. We also know Rodriguez's downside is walks (9%), which often get him into trouble, but that should be less of a hassle today against a team that rarely walks. If you throw out his recent performances, in bad match ups on the road, and focus on the potential ceiling he has today then this is a good spot to roll the dice on a volatile pitcher.

German Marquez, COL | DK: $8.8K, FD: $7.6K | RHP | vs. Miami

I will start this off by saying that you don't NEED to go here. There are some solid pitching options available to us today. But if you were ever going to roll the dice on Marquez at home - this would be the day to do it. My decision will likely come based on how the industry reacts to him today. If he's popular I'll fade (and probably roll out some Miami) but if people avoid him because they are scared of his home numbers this season then I'll go ahead and go overweight on him. I won't lie to you, the home/road splits are drastic and pretty terrifying. At home he owns a 6.45 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, and 24.5% strikeouts. On the road he has a 3.52 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, and 23.8% strikeouts. What's encouraging, however, is the bloated ERA in Coors Field also comes with a 3.37 xFIP and a .387 BABIP which really says that he's just fallen victim to the environment rather than he's actually pitching poorly at home. Against a weak offense, like Miami, I'm confident luck will go in his favor in this spot. Marquez would be in the discussion as one of the elite arms in the league if half his starts didn't come in Colorado. Rather than viewing him as a risk today, I'm viewing him as an opportunity to get a top tier arm in a great match up for a mid-tier price. If he pitches anything close to his typical road performances he'll have an excellent ROI.

Logan Webb, SFG | DK: $5.8K, FD: N/A | RHP | @ Arizona

The 22 year old fourth-rounder is expected to make his Major League debut today. He's ranked as the Giants fifth best prospect according to MLB Pipeline. At least for the moment, he is not available on FanDuel so let's hope they figure out a way to update that today. He is available on DraftKings and he's dirt cheap which presents some intriguing value. He's been absolutely dominant across four-minor league levels this season with a 1.85 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, and 69 strikeouts in 63.1 innings. Most of his time has been spent in Double-A where he owns a 2.18 ERA, 10.23 K/9 and just a 2.61 BB/9 in 41.1 innings. He was recently promoted to Triple-A where he made one start and threw seven innings of one run ball with seven strikeouts and zero walks. Given the Giants need a spot start after Shaun Alexander landed on the IL, and today would be Webb's normal day to go, it makes sense they are bringing him up despite just one start at the Triple-A level. He comes with plenty of risk given his lack of Triple-A experience, his previous Tommy John injury, and his recent PED suspension but there's a lot of upside here for the price. The risk averse side of me typically likes to wait for one or two starts at the Major League level before investing anything in a pitcher but with nothing else really standing out in this value tier today I think this is a worthy spot to roll the dice.

Team Stacks to Target

Quick Note: Keep in mind, there’s no rule saying you *have* to roll out four and five man stacks. Sometimes mixing and matching two and three man stacks with some one-off hitters is the better route to go in order to give yourself more exposure to different offenses.

Coors Field Disclaimer: We'll skip the Coors game today as usual but it's an interesting Coors slate since Miami is one of the teams involved. You'll definitely want exposure to the Rockies side. The Miami side, however, is less obvious. If you do play Marquez (and you're multi-entering) it's always a good idea to hedge when you're playing a pitcher at Coors.

Los Angeles Angels vs. Hector Santiago, CWS

I honestly didn't even know Santiago was still in the league. I had to go back and look to figure out how he ended up here this season. Apparently, he's spent most of the year in the Mets bullpen and has been used sparingly, a total of eight innings to be exact, where he had a 6.75 ERA, six strikeouts and five walks. He was released in June, picked up by the White Sox and stashed in Triple-A, and called up on August 6th for a start. In that start, against arguably the worst offense in baseball the Detroit Tigers, he allowed seven hits and four runs in just 4.2 innings. Laughably, he's going to get another shot at the rotation today. Give me all the Angels here. We talked about Trout earlier. If you can afford him, he's always worth it. Pujols has a couple of double-digit fantasy performances in August and owns a .770 wOBA+ISO in his last 18 plate appearances against a lefty. He's also super cheap. Justin Upton has a 50% hard contact rate and 101.4 mph average exit velocity in the past two weeks. He's also faced Santiago 18 times in his career and has 2.4 FP/PA against him.

Minnesota Twins vs. Ariel Jurado, TEX

Jurado was lit up in his last start against Toronto allowing 11 hits, eight earned runs, and two home runs in just 3.2 innings of work. Since the All-Star break, he owns a 7.09 ERA (5.50 SIERA), 1.67 WHIP, only 16% strikeouts, and 9.3% walks. Even worse, he's giving up a 50.9% hard contact rate. That's not good for someone who doesn't miss many bats. Add this together with a date against one of the top five offenses in baseball in one of the most hitter friendly ballparks in the league and what do you get? I'll give you a hint it looks something like this:

There's not a member of the Twins lineup I won't have interest in today. I'll point out that Marwin Gonzalez offers affordable exposure to this offense. He has five double-digit fantasy performances in his last six games.

Washington Nationals vs. Jordan Lyles, MIL

Has Lyles been good or just lucky since he joined the Brewers at the end of July? I'm leaning lucky. In his three starts he has an impressive 1.59 ERA but a 5.29 SIERA and just a .143 BABIP. That is a MASSIVE gap between ERA and SIERA and also an extremely low (and completely unsustainable) BABIP against him. He's allowing 42.2% hard contact and walking 12.1% of batters. There's just no way, given all this data, that he can continue to sustain an ERA as low as it's been the past few starts. I really like Washington to bring him back to earth today as he's clearly overdue. Juan Soto is one of my favorite bats on this slate. In his last 54 plate appearances against a right-handed pitcher he has an absurd 1.147 wOBA+ISO and 3.48 FP/PA.

One-Off Hitters

Here I’ll highlight players at [roughly] different price points (high, mid, low) that could be used as a ‘one-off’ piece in lineups -- or perhaps part of a two man mini-stack.

Andrew Benintendi, BOS | DK: $4.5K, FD: $3.7K | OF | vs. Asher Wojciechowski

Last time Wojciechowski faced the Red Sox he threw a gem but I like the Red Sox to get some revenge here. He struggles with lefties, including a 9.32 ERA, 1.93 HIP, and 2.52 FP/PA allowed in his last 20 starts. Benintendi, meanwhile, owns a .851 wOBA+ISO in his last 50 plate appearances against right-handed pitching.

Keston Hiura, MIL | DK: $4.3K, FD: $3.6K | 2B | vs. Anibal Sanchez

Hiura has seen a pretty steep decline in his price over the past week despite continued solid fantasy production. He has at least 10 fantasy points in five of his last seven games including a monster 39 point performance on August 7th. Yet his price, which spiked at $5K, has dropped down to $4.3K on DraftKings in the past week. This provides us an opportunity for value as Hiura has a monster .878 wOBA+ISO in his last 52 plate appearances against right-handed pitching.

Francisco Mejia, SD | DK: $3.8K, FD: $2.7K | C | vs. Zach Eflin

The infamous catcher spot could provide some salary relief thanks to Mejia who has been hitting the ball well recently. He'll face off against Eflin today, who actually lost his spot in the rotation to Jason Vargas at the trade deadline, but has now gained it back with Jake Arietta landing on the IL. Eflin is awful against left-handed hitters with a 6.12 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, and a .623 wOBA+ISO allowed in his last 20 starts. Just be aware that Meija is a low floor but high ceiling play. In the month of August his fantasy results look like this (DraftKings scoring): 8, 20, 20, 8, 8, 22, 0, 12, 17. I love him in this spot but just know he's volatile.

Best of luck today!

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