Betting

Castro enjoyed a big day at the plate, starting with a base hit in the second inning to put the Rockies on the board with a run. He then took Mike Burrows deep for a two-run blast in the fourth for his first home run of the season. The versatile 28-year-old is slashing .250/.318/.400 with seven runs scored and seven RBI across his first 44 plate appearances with the Rockies.

It’s a massive relief for the Rangers, and fantasy managers, after deGrom experienced right knee discomfort while warming up for Monday’s start against the Mariners where he struck out six and allowed one run over five innings. The 37-year-old fantasy ace will make his next start on Sunday against the Dodgers.

Musgrove has been limited to side work as he tries to get over the hump. “To get major league hitters out, your (expletive) has got to be good and you’ve got to be confident,” Musgrove said. “And I just don’t have that right now. I’m not far off. I showed signs of it in spring. My stuff was there. Just the ability to execute breaking balls and get in the zone consistently and recover well enough to do it again in five days, just …” Musgrove had an MRI last month that showed his repaired ligament was intact. Still, until his arm gets better about bouncing back from throwing sessions, he can’t even think about a rehab assignment. Clearly, he’s not going to be back on a major league mound before June and perhaps not then.

Eovaldi served up a solo homer to Brendan Donovan on the first pitch of the game. He recovered to retire the next three batters on ten pitches. After settling in for three more scoreless frames, the Mariners would bring one more run across on a pair of hits in the fifth. Eovaldi completed five innings for the first time in three starts and went on to strand two runners in the sixth. He generated an incredible 22 whiffs to collect seven strikeouts. The 36-year-old right-hander will look to string together another excellent start when he takes on the Athletics in Sacramento next Monday.

Walker has been one of the biggest disappointments in fantasy baseball — much of that due to having an outrageous amount of hype, deserved though it might have been — but the breakout season just might be coming. Yes, we know there’s still 150-plus games left to go. Walker hit his fourth homer of the season, and he’s now up to 11 RBI in 11 games with an OPS of 1.014. It’s understandable why some may be skeptical, but it’s never been a question of talent with Walker. He appears to finally be applying that talent at the highest level.

After a slow start, Wood appears to be heating up. Heating up is an understatement. After smoking a homer in Monday’s game, Wood made it back-to-back contests with a homer, and his fourth homer of the year was complemented by his first steal. Because he strikes out so often there’s going to be spurts of frustration, but so few batters hit the ball as hard as Wood does that it has a chance to be well worth it. Take the bitter with the better.

Schlittler brought the heat on a frigid evening at Yankee Stadium, where temperatures hovered in the low 40s throughout the night, averaging 96.6 and topping out at 98.8 mph on his fastball. The 25-year-old rising star retired six straight before giving up back-to-back hits in the third inning before serving up a two-run double to Nick Kurtz, which snapped a streak of 14 consecutive scoreless innings to open the year. He also gave up a ground-rule double to Tyler Soderstrom that brought home an additional run in the frame. He’s been leaning more on is cutter and sinker this season and the results have been phenomenal with a microscopic 1.62 ERA, 0.48 WHIP and 22/3 K/BB ratio across 16 2/3 innings. Simply put, he’s pitching like a fantasy ace right now. He’ll face the Rays on Sunday at Tropicana Field to close out a two-start week.

The box score doesn’t begin to tell the story, as once again, a vintage Alcantara outing. The 30-year-old wasn’t able to complete his second-consecutive shutout as he gave up a double and walk in the ninth, and two runs scored on a sac fly and a wild pitch in that frame after he exited. He struck out six, walked two, and wasn’t hit hard for the overwhelming majority of the game against a solid Cincinnati lineup. Alcantara will look to keep up this good run — good run seems like such an understatement — against the Tigers on Sunday. Fantasy managers who took a chance on Alcantara have to be thrilled.

Skenes took a no-hitter into the sixth, when Fernando Tatis Jr. singled with one out. Jake Cronenworth had already walked to lead off the inning, so the Padres had a threat going in a 2-0 game. Jackson Merrill, though, grounded into a double play to end it. Skenes lost the shutout when Xander Bogaerts homered with one out in the seventh and was removed immediately afterwards. Skenes has allowed precisely one run in both of his starts since his Oneil Cruz-fueled Opening Day disaster against the Mets. He’ll likely make his next start Monday versus the Nationals.

Griffin’s first hit was pounded right into the ground, but that was his only ball in play that wasn’t hit hard tonight. He had a 98-mph flyout, a 106-mph double-play ball and then a 113-mph single to plate two against Adrian Morejon in the eighth. It was the hardest-hit ball Morejon has given up since 2023. Before tonight, Griffin’s only hard-hit ball was his double in his first at-bat Friday. He’d been 0-for-12 at the plate since.