Rich Hill, Los Angeles Dodgers - I wanted to search for a sleeper or someone cheaper at the pitcher spot but let's be real, it's Rich Hill against the Padres. While I wasn't actively pursuing Hill in any of my drafts because the last time Hill was healthy for an entire season Hey There Delilah by the Plain White Tee's was charting, that doesn't mean he can't make for a great DFS play. Hill was dominant last season posting a 10.52/9 K/9 and a 2.12 ERA over his 110 innings. The Padres struck for one against Kershaw in the first and then notched an unearned run off him later in the game. In 14 at bats against Hill current Padres players have a .143 average with four punchouts and Eric Aybar is the only batter on the roster with a hit against him.
Travis Shaw, Milwaukee Brewers - Travis Shaw just doubled again. I mean literally, at whatever time you just read this he doubled again. He's got four of them through two games and he drove two more for the Brewers bringing his total to three extremely early on in the season. He doesn't have any real platoon splits (but also doesn't have crazy impressive numbers) so seeing him do some damages off of lefties is nice to see him hitting them from the get go.
Patrick Corbin, Arizona Diamondbacks - Patrick Corbin had a rough debut and while his stat line doesn't look "horrible", he was run from the game really early due to a really high pitch count after 4th inning. He struck just one over his four innings while walking two and allowing seven hits. Corbin still hasn't returned to his form of pre-TJ with an ERA in the 3.40 range with a respectable but not staggeringly high K/9. His K% has dropped of mightily last season down to 18.7% which isn't promising and this outing didn't do much to alleviate potential fantasy concerns. His next outing comes this weekend against the against the Indians and Corey Kluber with the Dodgers to be his the next team on the schedule after that.
Clayton Richard, San Diego Padres - Clayton Richard had a terrific first start of the season tossing 8 scoreless innings against the Dodgers (the same Dodgers who scored a ton of runs off staff ace Jhoulys Chacin). Richard relies solely on his GB% because he doesn't strike many batters out, and that continued this year with just five Ks in his eight innings plus an 80% GB rates. If he can keep the ground ball rate in the 60% range he's got a spot on deeper league team but I think his lack of Ks is what holds him back from becoming more relevant in leagues.
Jake Lamb, Arizona Diamondbacks - Jake Lamb continues to bomb off righties with a LONG homerun into the swimming pool/hot tub in right center. He went 0-for-4 in the first game while facing Madison Bumgarner and had the one hit with a walk tonight. His wRC+ against righties last season was 128 with a 63 wRC+ against lefties and 25 of his 28 homers also came off of righties. He's a no brainer start in every lineup against righties (especially DFS as his lefty #s could keep his price down) but you may want to have a backup plan against left handed arms.
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