MLB Pitching Pulse: 7-20-18

Pitching is the lifeblood of a DFS lineup, and an important part of keeping those tabs open deep into the night. For those new with us, the Pitching Pulse is focused on providing information on four to five pitchers that are viable in various formats. This is a premium article that will give away one free preview pitcher, while the rest will be for premium members. We take a deep dive into pitchers across all salaries, looking for exploitable matchups, game theory plays, and identify the nightly chalk. Our information comes from our optimizer, FanGraphs, and other various MLB sites listed below. Feel free to comment below, or find us on Twitter at @BrentHeiden1, @JGuilbault11, and @dfcafe. We focus on Main Slates across all content, but will feature blurbs about other slates at times, and can be reached via Twitter or comments.

After holding the Yankees to just two-runs on seven hits in his last outing, we have now seen Trevor Bauer hold his last seven opponents to two runs or fewer and has struck out at least seven in each of those outings. He has also notched double-digit strikeouts in six of his last ten outings and has eclipsed 100 pitches in each of those outings. His path to success is pretty clear tonight, as he faces off against the Rangers, and he comes in as a -177 favorite tonight with Texas projected at just 4.1 runs. Bauer has posted a stellar 31.4% strikeout rate overall this season and has held opponents on both sides of the plate under a .270 wOBA while allowing just six home runs overall. Bauer has raised his SwStr% to a massive 13.1% this season, up from 9.2% last season, and has dropped his contact rate a massive seven percent down to 71.3% which has led to major success for him and his 2.24 ERA and 1.08 WHIP. He has been throwing his 95 MPH four-seam fastball about 36% of the time this season, a slight decrease from last season, while mixing in his slider 14% of the time, and his curve ball about 29% of the time. He is generating a 39.4% WHIFF rate on his curve and a 40% WHIFF rate on his slider, both of which are excellent numbers. Bauer will need to work around the red-hot Shin-Soo Choo, who entered the All-Star break with a .333 ISO and .517 wOBA over his last 14 days, but won't face off against anyone else posting an ISO over .170 against his fastball this season and the entire Rangers offense struggles against off-speed pitches like his slider and curve ball. Bauer is the most expensive option on the board tonight but his ability to pitch deep into games, and his strikeout upside against an offense striking out 25.3% of the time against right-handed pitching this season, makes him the clear-cut top option on the board and someone that is a tough fade in all formats.