MLB Pitching Pulse: 7-3-18

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.

Shane Bieber has yet to allow an extra base hit to a right-hander this season, and he has yet to walk a right-handed hitter. My issue with Bieber tonight is the left-handed bats, and there will potentially five of them. Bieber has struggled with lefties, but these lefties are nothing to get excited about outside of Mike Moustakas and Lucas Duda. Despite their efforts, these lefties have a combined .287 wOBA and .151 ISO against right-handers. The righties.... They have a combined .251 wOBA and .098 ISO. Bieber is a huge favorite, and while I am still surprised to see his strikeouts up while throwing his fastball 61% of the time, it is hard to expect a ton of strikeouts against a team that doesn't strikeout much. But with his pinpoint accuracy, and his whiff rates on his changeup and slider, setting hitters up is what he does best. Over the last 30 days, the Royals rank dead last in offense, and have a 42 wRC+. Bieber's price is a little up there, but he is worth a look if the other matchups find you intimidated.