We made mention last week of just how important it is to take everything into account when putting together a daily fantasy baseball roster. Those parameters include hitter vs. pitcher match-ups, park factors, weather, and most importantly, the umpires. The jolly dude behind the dish is the sole decision maker as to how a game goes by virtue of his K zone. The following is a breakdown of how we expect some of tonight’s games will play out, and how you should set your line-up according to those speculations.
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Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Washington Nationals (Alan Porter) – The finale between the Buccos and Nats pits fireballer James McDonald against Jordan Zimmerman. The former has accrued 33 strikeouts and given up just six ERs over the course of his L/29 innings of work (4 starts), while the latter has allowed just eight ERs and 22 hits in his four home starts. Porter possesses a ginormous K zone (64.5%) that has seen him ring up an average of 14 strikeouts per game to just 4.7 walks. With that the case, the only one’s accruing tons of daily fantasy baseball points in this match-up look to be the starting hurlers.
Miami Marlins vs. Atlanta Braves (Joe West) – The red hot Marlins slugged their way to the 8-4 win in last night’s series opener with the Braves, but it could be the hosts that do the raking this time around against Ricky Nolasco whose had no success against the Braves throughout his career (4.80 ERA & .333 BA lifetime); especially at Turner Field where he’s 3-3 with a 4.91 ERA & .305 BAA. With “Country” Joe West and his 10.17 run per game and 2.17 HR/game averages behind the dish, it could get real ugly. Sluggers Heyward (1), Uggla (2), Jones (4), and McCann (6) have all gone yard against him in the past, so at least one of those guys should find himself on your daily fantasy MLB roster this evening.
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Houston Astros (Brian Knight) – Both Shaun Marcum and J.A. Happ are going to love seeing Knight and his 64 percent K zone behind the dish in the finale of the division rivals mini set this evening. Him averaging 2.23 K/BB along with ringing up an average of 16.6 Ks per game on the year falls in line with what both starting hurlers will attempt to do this evening. Both Marcum (39 Ks through 44 IP) and Happ (38 Ks through 39.1 IP) are strikeout pitchers that do a good job in limiting walks. That said; Happ has shown a penchant to give up the long ball and has had problems with Aramis Ramirez, Corey Hart, and Ryan Braun in the past. Due to Marcum’s past success against the Astros (2-0 with a 2.52 ERA & .204 BAA) paired with the ump, we lean towards adding members of the Brew Crew to your roster this evening.
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