Ottoneu Starting Pitching Drip: May 12–14

Welcome back to the SP Drip. My goal for this bi-weekly column is to comb through the upcoming schedule each week to find a few under-owned pitchers (less than 50% ownership across Ottoneu) who could be used to help you hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues or to make sure you’re hitting your innings pitched cap in points leagues. Tuesday’s article will cover the weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and Friday’s article will cover the upcoming week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). That way, you’ll have time to start your auctions in time to actually drip these pitchers into your lineup.

Upcoming Schedule:

Teams with favorable schedules include the Angels, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Mariners, Marlins, Rangers, Reds, and Tigers.

Teams with tougher schedules include the Blue Jays, Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers, Guardians, Nationals, Padres, Phillies, Rockies, and Yankees.

Highlighted matchups:

Not a lot of recommendations for this weekend. There are a pair of starters in the Mariners-Tigers series who you could go after since both of those offenses have been sputtering and they’re playing in the cavernous Comerica Park. All three of the Tigers starters scheduled to start in the series fall below the 50% ownership threshold, but Matthew Boyd is clearly the best of the bunch. On Seattle’s side, Marco Gonzales has been solid if unspectacular this year. His last start was a gutty six inning outing against the Astros where he allowed three runs on six hits while striking out three.

Both J.P. France and Adrian Houser have made just a single start this year, though both draw a pretty nice matchup for their second start. France is a little bit more of a risky play since he’s pitching in the home run friendly Guaranteed Rate Field, but he looked solid against the Mariners in his major league debut over the weekend. Houser was activated off the IL on Sunday and made his first start against the Giants, throwing 4.2 innings with just two runs allowed and five strikeouts.

Despite allowing 13 runs across his last three starts, Ryne Nelson’s FIP during that stretch has been just 3.57 with a 4.23 xFIP. Six of those runs came in a start in Coors Field which is where the only home run he’s allowed over the last few weeks was hit. He’s lined up to start against the Giants at home over the weekend. San Francisco’s offense has been hitting pretty well, but Nelson’s home park is pretty home run friendly.

Hot starters:

I just highlighted a different Rockies starter in my last column and I’m going back to that well again. Kyle Freeland has been pretty decent over his last three starts including a seven inning outing yesterday against the Pirates. He was fantastic against the Brewers at home last week, throwing five shutout innings with five strikeouts and just three hits. The same warnings apply here as they did for Ryan Feltner: avoid starts at home while playing the matchups on the road.

Say it ain’t so! It looks like Patrick Corbin might be showing some signs of life after three miserable seasons. He pitched a solid seven innings against the Cubs last week, allowing just two runs on three hits while striking out six. He’s scheduled to start against the Giants in San Francisco today. We’ll see if he can continue building off that start against Chicago.

Recap: May 5–7

Ouch. Nothing good came from those recommendations last weekend. In the Brad Keller-Kyle Muller matchup on Friday, the A’s and Royals wound up scoring 20 runs combined. The only start that came close to being a win was Yonny Chirinos’s start against the Yankees, though he walked four and didn’t strike out a single batter in that outing.