Chalk Stack(s)

 

New York Yankees vs. Kyle Gibson

The thing is, the Twins starter hasn’t really been all that bad this year, but this is all about how good the Yankees offense has been of late. They’ve scored 42 runs over their last five games including 12 home runs. Gibson has, however, been susceptible to right-handed bats this year. Nine of the 10 earned runs he’s allowed have come against right-handers. Just last year he allowed a .352 wOBA to lefties and a .358 to righties, so everyone hit him equally hard last year no matter the handedness.

If you haven’t heard, the Yankees have some powerful right-handed hitters in their lineup. Their names? Aaron Judge , Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sánchez . You can even sprinkle in some Tyler Austin in the mix as he hit his fifth home run of the year on Wednesday, raising his slugging percentage to .661. Hey, why not include Miguel Andujar into the mix as well. Andujar has nine doubles, three home runs and a triple over his last nine games. Think about that for a second.Judge has a 1.126 OPS on the year and has reached safely in every game during the month of April. Giancarlo Stanton has been a little better as well, hitting .261 over the last seven days including two bombs.

We can’t forget about the lefties, however, as Aaron Hicks and Didi Gregorius are both viable options, even Brett Gardner if he leads off. Gregorius homered for the fourth straight game and extended his hit streak to nine games on Wednesday and it’s not even fair how good he’s been of late. Really since the season began. Hicks has primarily done all his damage against right-handed pitching this year. He’s slashed .296/.472/.519 with all of his homers and all but one RBI coming against them.

Primary Option(s): Aaron Judge , Didi Gregorius , Aaron Hicks , Gary Sánchez , Miguel Andujar

Secondary Option(s): Tyler Austin , Giancarlo Stanton , Brett Gardner

 

Contrarian Stack(s)

 

Minnesota Twins vs. Jordan Montgomery

With the Yankees opening up as a -190 favorites, and their offense clicking on all cylinders, the Twins could go overlooked in this spot. Montgomery has had a small sample against left-handers as opposing managers have elected to stack righty bats against him, but he’s been average against RHH. His .276 BAA and .331 wOBA are numbers we can in fact exploit. Righties had their fun against the Yankees southpaw last year hitting 16 bombs out of the 21 he gave up on the entire season.

Brian Dozier and Miguel Sano were two of the best hitters against left-handed pitching in the league last year. Dozier finished 16th in OPS while Sano finished 26th. Sano went deep on Wednesday which could get him going as he’s been mired in a bigtime slump since the season began. Eduardo Escobar is another interesting name that we could include in this stack. He’s only 3.4K, hitting relatively close to the middle of the lineup and will likely fly under the radar. On the year he’s hitting southpaws at a .308 clip. Max Kepler and Ehire Adrianza have been two other pieces hitting lefty pitching well. Adrianza leads the club in batting average at .364 while Kepler’s driven in the most runs (10) against them. Both guys are viable as secondary options.

Primary Option(s): Miguel Sano , Brian Dozier , Eduardo Escobar

Secondary Option(s): Max Kepler , Jason Castro , Ehire Adrianza

 

Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Michael Fulmer

Over his last three starts, Fulmer has allowed at least nine base runners in each contest. He’s also allowed three homers and eight earned runs over his last two games pitched, while striking out just six. The Pirates are the fourth best team in baseball against right-handed pitching in terms of striking out and Fulmer is someone who doesn’t miss bats often, so the correlation is there for Pittsburgh.

Fulmer has been especially bad against lefties this year allowing a .327/.364/.615 slash and all three homers have come against LHH as well. Corey Dickerson and Grégory Polanco are both pretty damn good left-handed bats in the Pirates lineup. Dickerson has dropped all the way down to 3.6K and has driven in all 12 of his runs against righty pitching. Polanco leads the Pirates in homers and is heating up a tad notching hits in three of his last four games. Josh Bell had an .813 OPS versus RHP last year and even though I mentioned lefties were the ones with success off of him, his stuff isn’t as good as it was during his rookie year a couple of season’s back.

Adam Frazier and Colin Moran are two other lefties in the Pirates lineup that you can get exposure to here. Frazier has been splitting leadoff duties with Sean Rodríguez we obviously need to pay attention to the starting lineup, because if Frazier isn’t leading off, my interest drops off. DraftKings is just handing Moran away for free on this slate at 2.9K and is basically asking us to pair the Pirates with the Yankees in this spot, because the Pittsburgh pricing allows us too.

Primary Play(s): Corey Dickerson , Grégory Polanco , Adam Frazier (if leading off)

Secondary Play(s): Josh Bell , Starling Marte , Colin Moran , Sean Rodríguez (if leading off