One of the more popular daily fantasy baseball strategies is to stack your line-up when a bulk of a team’s roster has proven to have success against a starting pitcher in the past. Wednesday’s diamond slate offers up a number of those situations, and today, we’ll be digging into those juicy match-ups in hopes of producing yet another winning roster at FantasyFeud.com.
Detroit Tigers vs. Nick Blackburn (MIN) – The Twins righty enters his seventh start of the season 1-4 with a 7.18 ERA & 1.63 WHIP. He possesses just one quality start to date and has served up at least five ERs in three of his L/4 trips to the bump. He’s lasted six innings in his pair of road starts, but they came against the weak hitting Mariners & Angels. Detroit has peppered him to the tune of a 5.33 ERA & .289 BAA in 11 career starts, and he’s been ripped for a 7.71 ERA & .330 BAA in seven career Comerica Park starts. The trio of Miguel Cabrera, Alex Avila, and Austin Jackson are a combined 23-for- 55 against him (.418) with 4 HR, 5 2B and 15 RBI with six walks and eight Ks. For good measure, rookie Andy Dirks is 2-for-3 against him with a double and an RBI. Look for the Tigers top of the order to do some major damage tonight!
Miami Marlins vs. Mike Minor (ATL) – It’ll be a battle of lefties in the first series of 2012 between the division rival Marlins and Braves. Minor put forth a nice string of starts in mid to late April, but since then, the southpaw has served up nothing but batting practice getting tagged for 26 hits (7 HR) and 21 ERs in his L/3 starts. This will only be his third Turner Field start of the season where he’s 6-3 with a 3.87 ERA & .270 BAA in 13 career starts, but he’ll make it against a Miami team that’s done nothing but light him up in his three lifetime starts against them. Though the Marlins have limited ABs against him, they’ve made the most of them: Giancarlo Stanton is 2/2 with 2 HR, Hanley Ramirez is 2/2 with 1 HR, Logan Morrison is 3/5 with a 2B, 3B, & HR. All but John Buck has tallied a hit against Minor and he’s currently in very poor form. You simply can’t go wrong with a MLB daily fantasy stack of the Fish this evening!
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Bud Norris (HOU) – The first three 2012 meetings between these NL Central rivals saw the ‘over’ cash with ease in each game, and this exact pitching match-up produced the highest scoring game of the series (15 runs). Bud Norris has been a solid arm within the Astros rotation the last couple years, but he’s had absolutely no luck against the Brew Crew getting gouged for 47 hits (9 HR) and 26 ERs through 47 innings of work. Though he’s been rock solid at home to date (2.29 ERA & .197 BAA), Milwaukee tagged him for 11 combined ER the last two times they faced him there last season. The addition of George Kottaras into the starting line-up as Wolf’s primary catcher could only add to his misery as the backstop is 2-for-5 with a 3B and HR against him. Add Travis Ishikawa (fresh off a 2 HR game), Corey Hart, Aramis Ramirez, and Nyjer Morgan to the mix of all having success vs. Norris, and you got yourself a very healthy Brewers stack in the works.
**Value Hurler of the Night**
Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Clayton Richard (SD) – Many will be quick to back Capuano in this start against a Padres squad that’s shown little if any offensive prowess to date and has struggled mightily versus left-handed pitching. However, Richard has thrived at Petco throughout his career including this season where he’s 1-2 with a 2.21 ERA as opposed to 0-3 with a 7.99 ERA on the road. He’s also excelled throughout his career tossing at the Dodgers going 5-1 with a 2.63 ERA & .243 BAA (9 starts). With Kemp now on the DL, LA’s offense is far from menacing; it’s combined for just four runs the L/2 games without him. On top of that, only A.J. Ellis (3/6) and Juan Uribe (9/24) have had any notable success against Richard whose tossed quality efforts in all three of his home starts to date. Look for that trend to continue here in the series opener!
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