CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings: Thursday, September 30th
Happy Thursday! Our final Thursday of the regular season gives us a nine-game slate with a few important real-life games on the schedule. On the DFS side of things, the pitching takes a step down from the past couple days, but there are still a half dozen or so good pitchers with upside. It will be another night of Red Sox chalk against another lefty in Baltimore, and then spreading out quickly after that.
Thursday Night Pitching
I see a seven-pitcher top tier that pretty much wraps up my interest on this slate, but we’ll look at two cheap darts as well.
Seven Up Top
Robbie Ray vs Yankees
Lance McCullers vs Rays
Joe Ryan vs Tigers
Ian Anderson vs Phillies
Nick Pivetta at Orioles
Shane Bieber at Royals
Rich Hill vs Marlins
This is a very interesting group with matchups and pitch counts thrown in. The best two pitchers here talent wise are Robbie Ray and Shane Bieber. But it’s close to a worst-case scenario matchup on the risk side for Ray against the right-handed power of the Yankees and Bieber is very unlikely to throw enough pitches here to matter. Bieber’s first start since June was just 34 pitches and three innings, and even though he looked good, he’s getting the X button from me tonight. Ray is not at all getting the X button, and this is a guy who can dominate anyone at his best. However, at the high salary on the slate and with the risk added in, he’s not at the top of my board. Let’s look through this next group and then re-asses where he ranks.
Lance McCullers has been remarkably steady in real life given his shaky control. An 11.3% walk rate, with multiple walks in six straight starts makes me uneasy against a team like Tampa. They may rest a couple starts, but everyone they put in there can make him work, and he’s going to struggle to get back to that six-inning mark. Houston still needs to win to lock up the division, so this should be a normal workload for McCullers if he pitches well, but there is still a ceiling on him at six innings and 7-8 strikeouts. I prefer Ray ahead of McCullers.