Dave Gloeckner 
We are one day closer to the weekend which makes this a great Thirsty Thursday here at Win Daily. I’m excited for what we have in store for you on this great Memorial Day weekend. From our daily MLB content, we also have two great Sirius XM Radio shows on tap (Friday and Sunday) where Tony and I, specifically, will start unleashing some of our Fantasy Football Rookie Rankings. So tune into that as well as our awesome daily content. Which leads us to today which gives us a nice slate of 8 MLB games. We’ll dial in the early DFS card, which starts at 1235pm.
Both Jared and I will be posting articles during the week and have a central focus on both MLB betting and DFS. Today is my turn and I will provide you a centralized focus on betting, props and DFS plays.
GAME BETS & PLAYER PROPS
SAN DIEGO PADRES -110 at CINCINATTI REDS
The Reds find themselves in the basement of the NL Central due to their recent stretch of poor play, going 3-7 in their last 10 games. And today they hand the ball to Frankie Montas who has lost his last 3 starts.
On the other side, the Padres come into today’s game with one of the NL’s best road records at 16-10. And they’ve started this current road trip with a 4-2 record. The Pads give the ball to Matt Waldron who is coming off a tremendous start when he struck out a career high 10 batters. He also has a better road split, with his ERA almost 3 runs lower at 3.60.
So I’ll back the Padres today to keep up their winning ways away from California and get the series win in Cincy.
NEW YORK YANKEES -140 vs SEATTLE MARINERS
The Bronx is buzzing as the Bombers are living up to their name. The Yankees have taken over the league lead in homers with 73. And that’s led by a recent surge by Juan Soto (4 homers in L10 games) and Aaron Judge (5 homers in L10 games). Looking at today’s slate, Seattle SP Luis Castillo is 2nd in homers allowed with 7. More concerning is his walk rate on the road as he’s allowed seven free passes in his last two road starts. The Yanks are tied for 1st with a 10.2% walk rate. Then the other thing to consider is SP Luis Gil is 3-0 with a 1.64 ERA at home.
DOG OF THE DAY: ATLANTA BRAVES +100 vs CHICAGO CUBS
The Braves flexed their muscles last night against Chicago coming away with a 9-2 victory. Because of their schedule this week, they called up AJ Smith-Shawver to start today’s getaway game against the Cubs. The 21-year-old got a cup of coffee in the big leagues last year starting 5 games down the stretch, including one against the Cubs. He threw 3.2 innings and allowed 0 hits against Chicago on that late September day. So there is familiarity there for the young Braves arm.
I also like the fact that the Braves bullpen has the 4th best ERA in baseball at 3.24. I don’t expect Smith-Shawver to go past the fourth which means the Braves will rely heavily on their bullpen to close out this game. Chicago, on the other hand, has a 4.15 ERA for their bullpen which is 20th in the MLB. SP Ben Brown has been used as an opener more than a starter lately, so it’s likely we see Chicago turn this to a bullpen game as well. And if so, I’ll take the better one, as well as the better lineup, in Atlanta.
PLAYER PROPS
GRAYSON RODRIGUEZ over 5.5 K’s (-185 DK) and over 6.5 K’s (+120 DK)
The Baltimore SP has a solid 26.2% K rate on the season. Which is up 1.2% from his 2023 numbers. He returned from the IL last week and pitched 6 shutout innings allowing just 1 hit while striking out 7. And he threw 82 pitches which I expect to rise to at least 90 tonight. The White Sox have a modest K rate on the season, but it’s risen to a top seven K rate in the past 10 days.
ZACK WHEELER over 6.5 Ks (-135 DK)
in Wheeler’s last 5 home starts he has strikeout totals of 6, 11, 8, 10 and 10. As shown, he hits 7 Ks in four of those five starts and blows it away in all of those. Rangers batters struck out 10 times against Ranger Suarez on Tuesday and 8 more times against Phillies pitching on Wednesday. The over 7.5 Ks at +120 is also worth playing.
TBD
PLUS PROP OF THE DAY – TBD
We’ll often add a home run prop or something valued over +200 in this spot. For these bets, plan anywhere from 0.1 to 0.5 units.
DFS – 12:35PM SLATE
We’re looking at the 12:35pm slate today as that has the largest pool of games with 6.
Top Pitchers to Target:
ZACK WHEELER ($11,000 DK):
The Phillies starting rotation leads baseball with a 2.64 ERA and 3.25 FIP. They also have the highest K rate at 25.2% and opponents bat just 0.210 off their SP’s. Today, the Phillies hand the ball to their most reliable SP in Zack Wheeler who owns a 2.52 ERA and a 0.96 WHIP. But the reason I’m all-in on Wheeler today is because he’s pitching at home. Wheeler’s ERA at home is 1.63 while his road split is 4.09. His K rat also spikes up from 8.8 K/9 on the road to 11.65 K/9 at home. And hitters are batting just 0.156 against Wheeler when he’s on the mound in Philly.
PAUL SKENES ($9500 DK):
It’s must watch TV today when Paul Skenes takes the mound in Pittsburgh against the Giants. The Pirates phenom struck out the first seven batters he faced in his last outing enroute to a 38.9 DK point outing. All he did was pitch six no-hit innings and rack up 11 K’s against Chicago. And today he faces a SF team coming in with hot bats as they’ve scored 15 runs in the first two games of this series. But they haven’t seen Skenes yet, or anything like it. Advantage pitcher. Get your popcorn ready!
OTHER SP’S IN MY PLAYER POOL: LUIS GIL ($10,000 DK),
Value Pitchers to Target:
RYAN FELTNER ($6000 DK)
The Rockies SP is coming into today’s game with a 1-4 record at 5.69 ERA. But his predictive metrics show room for improvement as his xFIP is 4.02 and SIERA is 4.04. Then there’s his opponent, the Oakland A’s, who have a 30.2% K rate over the past 2 weeks. They’re also 2nd to last in runs scored in that stretch with just 31.
HONORABLE MENTION: MATT WALDRON ($6200 DK)
Top Stacks to Target:
ROCKIES:
The Rockies bats have been hot of late as they come into today’s game with top 10 numbers in BA, SLG, and OPS in the past 2 weeks. They get A’s rookie SP Joey Estes who had a disastrous outing his last time out, where he allowed 8 ER’s in 3.2 innings pitched. Start your stack with Ryan McMahon who has 4 homers, including one in extras last night, and is batting 0.348 in his last 10 games. Also look to see if Elias Diaz starts today at C as he’ll be in my stack. Others to consider are Jake Cave, Brenton Doyle and Ezequial Tovar.
PHILLIES:
When Andrew Heaney takes the mound for Texas, I look directly to see the other teams’ power numbers. The Phillies are 8th in baseball in HR’s (58), 4th in OPS (0.754) and 10th in ISO (0.160). So they fit the bill of a team I want to stack against Heaney who is susceptible to fly balls (49.3%) and home runs (7). I’ll look at right-handed bats such as JT Realmuto, Alec Bohm, Edmundo Sosa and Nick Castellanos (5 for 6 off Heaney in his career). And I’ll also grab Bryce Harper in some of those stacks when I get cheaper at pitching.
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