Ryan Humphries | @N1TRO on LineStar | @NitroDFS on Twitter

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Even with all of the excellent pitching slates we’ve had over the last few days, today’s nine-gamer is still loaded with arm talent. The obvious storyline is the return of two of the game’s best aces. Gerrit Cole (hamstring) will be making his first start since August 7th while Max Scherzer (back) returns from the IL after making his last appearance on July 25th. Are you paying the premium to roster either guy tonight? Also, the most ‘baseball thing’ of the season may have occurred last night when the Detroit Tigers (+435) won 2-1 against Justin Verlander and the Houston Astros (-560). According to Bet Labs, it was the biggest MLB upset in more than a decade, going back to 2005. Wild stuff! Gotta love baseball!

Here are tonight’s match-ups with implied totals and moneylines:

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

Weather Outlook ⛅️

We’ll need to keep an eye on a few spots tonight. TB @ BAL will see scattered showers come through around gametime and could cause some issues. It’s not incredibly high risk but delays or possible PPD can’t be ruled out completely. WAS @ PIT may likely result in a “late start and play” scenario as rain coverage lessens a little while after the scheduled first pitch. Elsewhere, CLE @ NYM, COL @ STL, and MIA @ ATL could see some lower coverage storms come through but nothing that seems to threaten any sort of washout. Run a final weather check on these games ahead of first pitch.

Pitchers to Consider

Cole vs. Scherzer Preface: I’m not really looking to go in-depth on the two top aces today but do remember that both are returning from brief injury hiatuses so either some rust may need to be shaken off or their respective managers may monitor their pitch counts a bit closely. This is based off of no official report that I’ve seen but keep an eye on anything that may come up closer to game time. If I had to answer who I feel more comfortable with deploying right now, my answer would probably be Cole considering he never officially went on the IL, the Astros were likely being overly cautious with his injury, and even if he goes about six innings he can return you value with his insane 38.8% kRate at home. Also, he’s playing Detroit so… yeah. Back-to-back borderline historic upsets doesn’t seem likely.

Mike Soroka (DK: $10k, FD: $9.3k) | RHP | vs. MIA

You may not be aware but Mike Soroka’s 2.41 ERA is the second-lowest in baseball among qualified starters. He rarely allows a home run (0.53 HR/9), boasts a sparkling 10-2 record, and forces hitters into 54% ground balls. So what’s the hangup here? Well, for fantasy purposes, he just doesn’t get many strikeouts. He has just a 19.7% kRate this year and in DFS that will make someone with these salaries a hard pill to swallow. Still, this is a chance for a ceiling game for Soroka -- much like it was yesterday for teammate Julio Teheran. In three starts versus Miami this year (22 innings pitched), Soroka has allowed just one run (0.41 ERA) with a 0.64 WHIP and an opponent .120 AVG/.157 wOBA. He recorded six strikeouts in each of those starts, good for a 21.7% kRate and 27.5 DKFP per game. Soroka obviously doesn’t have the ceiling of a Gerrit Cole or a Max Scherzer, but if you want to pivot away from those guys at the top just in case they both start off a bit slow in their return (or get yanked early), the 22-year-old Atlanta ground ball specialist is not a terrible pivot.

Kenta Maeda (DK: $8.1k, FD: $7.8k) | RHP | vs. TOR

I really think Ryan Yarbrough is an interesting play more towards the mid-range as well, but dropping down to Kenta Maeda saves $1,200 on both sites and you should get a safe floor from him as he takes the mound in Dodger Stadium. Maeda has much better splits at home this year where he possesses a 6-3 record to go with his 2.84 ERA (3.90 xFIP), 27.2% kRate, 0.86 WHIP, and opponent .176 AVG/.237 wOBA. Toronto has been a top 10 offense versus right-handed pitching with a 108 wRC+ over the last month (ranks 9th) but they still have been striking out plenty with a 26% kRate during that time. They’ve also only amassed four runs against Dodgers pitching across the first two games of this series so we should get a pretty solid floor from Maeda here today.

Miles Mikolas (DK: $7.2k, FD: $6.8k) | RHP | vs. COL

For value on DraftKings, Aaron Civale ($6.2k) stands out nicely but I wouldn’t have much interest in him on FanDuel at his $8.5k price tag. So, enter Miles Mikolas, who checks in with a reasonable price on both sites. Like so many other starting MLB pitchers, Mikolas is much more trustworthy at home where his 2.43 ERA sits over four runs lower than his 6.54 road ERA. He’s typically not going to get you a ton of strikeouts (17.4% kRate) but, in the pitcher-friendly Busch Stadium, Mikolas is holding hitters to a .238 AVG/.274 wOBA alongside a strong 1.06 WHIP and 0.81 HR/9. We know Colorado is a far less dangerous team away from Coors Field where they have just an 88 wRC+ (19th) and .139 team ISO (28th) versus righties on the road in the last month. This is far from a ‘sure thing’, especially with the weather in question here, but good value can certainly be returned from Mikolas this evening.

Team Stacks to Target

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 take in order to give yourself more exposure to different offenses.

Texas Rangers vs. Ross Detwiler (LHP), CWS

Ideally, what is the one thing we want from our team stacks? Dingers, yabbos, bombs, moon shots, four baggers… AKA home runs. Detwiler easily leads the slate by allowing 3.05 HR/9 this season and with wind blowing out to right around 15 mph in Chicago at Guaranteed Rate Field, the Rangers are certainly capable of blasting a few out the park tonight. Texas was a team we could attack for a while with lefty pitching but, surprisingly, they rank 6th over the last month versus LHPs with a 128 wRC+, 5th with a .374 wOBA, and 7th with a .245 ISO (in 362 plate appearances). The preferred targets here include Hunter Pence, Willie Calhoun, and Delino DeShields. Consider a Rougned Odor and Danny Santana boom/bust stack pieces as well.

Houston Astros vs. Jordan Zimmermann (RHP), DET

Astros bats burned a lot of the field yesterday so this is a perfect time to go back to ‘em. They are still very pricey and haven’t exactly been scoring enough runs to justify four or five man stacks but I’d see nothing wrong with rolling out some two and three man Astro stacks. Zimmermann is rocking a cursed 6.66 ERA (5.17 xFIP) this season with yet another cursed 6.66 K/9 (16.5% kRate). Is this a bad omen or something? We’ll see. His .297 opponent average jumps to a lofty .352 AVG with runners in scoring position. That’s a perfect combo for stacks to string together runs and produce fantasy points for one another. It’s always tough to pinpoint specific Astro bats to focus towards since they’re pretty much all really good, but Yuli Gurriel, Jose Altuve, and Yordan Alvarez all have at least a .300 ISO and 185 wRC+ versus righties over the last 30 days. Michael Brantley isn’t far behind.

New York Yankees (LHBs) vs. Tanner Roark (RHP), OAK

Yankees again? Ehh, why not. I think a little late night lefty stack could work here. Roark has shown pretty significant splits. He’s stout against RHBs allowing only a .232 AVG, .276 wOBA, .108 ISO, and a 1.09 WHIP on 25.4% strikeouts. However, against LHBs he is giving up a .311 AVG, .410 wOBA, .214 ISO, and a 1.79 WHIP on 18.9% strikeouts. Didi Gregorius, Mike Tauchman, and Mike Ford are the preferred lefty bats in the current projected Yankees lineup.

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.

Will Smith (DK: $5.4k, FD: $3.9k) | C | vs. Jacob Waguespack (RHP), TOR

Okay, so this man is actually elite. He can’t stop hitting home runs! Over his last 20 games versus RHPs (47 plate appearances) he’s hit a home run in 12.8% of his PAs (six homers) en route to a .366 AVG, .535 wOBA, .561 ISO and 19 RBI. On top of things, Waguespack has shown very poor reverse splits this season, allowing RHBs to hit .321 with a .388 wOBA and .210 ISO on 48.1% Hard Contact. The prices are steep on Smith now, especially for a catcher, but you can’t say he hasn’t earned it. I was tempted to make him my home run call yesterday but in regretful fashion, I’ll take him to go yard tonight. Don’t let me down Fresh Prince! 💣

Paul Goldschmidt (DK: $4.1k, FD: $3.5k) | 1B | vs. German Marquez (RHP)

Goldy is running kinda cold, as he is just one for his last twelve, so consider this very much a BvP play. The Cards first baseman is hitting .385 in 31 plate appearances versus Marquez to go along with four home runs and a 1.079 wOBA+ISO. Goldschmidt has been feast or famine lately but if you believe in the BvP narrative, you will likely snag him in GPPs at around 5% ownership or below tonight.

Jesus Aguilar (DK: $3.7k, FD: $2.7k) | 1B | vs. Asher Wojciechowski (RHP)

There aren’t a ton of value one off hitters that stand out tonight but Aguilar has the potential to hit clean up for the Rays, who have one of the highest projected run totals of the evening (5.5 runs). Aguilar may not be showing much lately but he is still hitting .355 versus RHPs over his last 20 games (36 PA) with a .607 wOBA+ISO. He’s also been hitting better on the road, away from the Rays’ pitcher-friendly stadium. Wojciechowski has shown some good stuff at times this year but his 5.49 xFIP at home is really poor and he’s been getting knocked out of games pretty early lately after about four innings. The sooner the Rays can dig into the Orioles awful bullpen, the better.

Update: Aguilar will be batting seventh but is still worth a look. Teammate Ji-Man Choi draws the clean up spot and could be worthy of consideration as well for just a few hundred more than Aguilar.

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