Nick Hundley- C- COL- Idea- Colorado will be facing Jerome Williams, who has allowed a higher SLG against RH hitters over the course of his career. This year he has had trouble against them across the board, with a slash line of .319/.359/.528 and has given up 7 homers in 33.2 IP. Hundley ahs also had a severe reverse split, with a slash line of .357/.390/.592 and all 5 of his homers coming against RH pitching. Give an edge to Hundley in this matchup. Value play- DraftKings salary $3600
Gio Gonzalez- P- WAS- Stats- Gonzalez regressed some from his previous start, but didn't perform nearly as poorly as he had in the two outings before that one. Yesterday he only lasted 5.1 IP, needing 99 pitches to get that far. Gonzalez threw 64 of them for strikes, though, and recorded 6 Ks. His FIP for the season, even after giving up 4 runs on 7 hits and 2 walks yesterday is at 3.04. He is a buy low candidate if his current owner is spooked by 3 out of his last 4 outings failing to be quality starts.
Joey Votto- 1B- CIN- Hot- I have to respectfully disagree with my colleague, Dave Donohue, about his assessment on Votto yesterday. He (Votto, not Dave) hit a homer in his second straight game yesterday as he went 2-for-3. His BABIP of .317 seems high, especially for a 1B. However, Votto's career mark is .353, so he seems to have been suffering from bad luck, particularly this May, when it was.294 before yesterday. Along with the homer yesterday, the walk without a strikeout was a good sign. His Batting EYE is 0.69 and rising. His career mark is 0.81 so picking up 3 walks and 1 K in his last 4 games is an indicator that he is heading back to his norm. Votto is well on target to hit his preseason predictions of .289 average with 23 homers and 78 RBI. He is a little behind pace to get to 92 runs but it's not out of the question.
Kyle Lohse- P- MIL- Cold- Lohse had his worst start since his horrendous first outing of the season, when he gave up 8 runs in 3.1 IP. He fell one short of that yesterday, allowing 7 runs in 3.1 IP on 11 hits, 2 of them homers. The Diamondbacks were so busy hitting the ball, they didn't walk. Two of them did manage to strike out. Lohse has had issues with the long ball, with a HR/9 of 1.88 much higher than his career mark of 1.09. That accounts for the difference between his ERA of 6.50 and xFIP of 4.07. If he can start keeping the ball in the park again Lohse could turn it around. That seems to be a tall order at this point, however.
Jon Jay- OF- STL- FYI- Jay went 1-for-3 in his first start since coming off the DL. His BABIP of .290 is well below his career average of .342, so he is due for some positive regression ot the mean and an increase in his .257 average. Jay has also dramatically increased his contact % this season and dropped his swinging strike %. He makes contact 89.7% of the time, up from 83.7% last year. His contact rate on pitches outside the zone has risen from 71.9% to 81.6%. His swinging strike % is down from 7.9% to 4.9%. The odds are that Jay will see a significant jump in production.
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