Garion Thorne dives into this tonight’s eight-game MLB slate to find three players you need to put in your DraftKings lineups.
There’s no more basketball. There’s no more hockey. I know there’s a little thing called “The World Cup” happening in North America at the moment, but setting that aside, it’s now the dog days of summer. It’s baseball season, folks.
Tonight on DraftKings, we’ve got ourselves an eight-game featured slate that gets going at 7:10 p.m. ET.
Let’s dive into a few must-start picks for your lineups.
Set your DraftKings MLB DFS lineups here: MLB $200K Knuckleball [$50K to 1st]
It’s a weird pitching slate tonight. You’ve got Chase Burns ($11,000) justifiably at the top of the heap, but then no pitcher within $2,000 of the Reds’ phenom. As such, I think it’s a slate where you want to get a little creative. A little risky. That’s where an asset like May comes into the picture.
May was awful in 2025, yet he’s sneakily been fantastic for the Cardinals in 2026 — even if he’s been unlucky. Entering play on Monday, May’s 4.21 ERA isn’t going to turn heads, but a 3.22 FIP is far more telling of the 28-year-old’s campaign. May’s been burdened by a 66.3% strand rate, yet his walk rate and barrel rate are back down, while his average fastball velocity has shot back up to around where it was pre-injury in 2023 (97.0). Specific to his past four starts, May owns a 1.94 FIP and he’s struck out 32.3% of the batters he’s faced. Need I say more?
Obviously, this is also a great matchup for May and St. Louis. The Padres simply have not hit well all year long. San Diego comes into tonight’s tilt with a league-worst .219 batting average. The club also sits dead-last in wOBA (.292) and wRC+ (87).
Busch has more than shaken off a cold start to the season. In fact, he’s simply been one of the best hitters in baseball since the beginning of May. To wit, Busch sports a 169 wRC+ in that span of time, which is the fourth-highest qualified mark in the National League, trailing only Shohei Ohtani, James Wood and Jake Bauers. In the 181 plate appearance sample, Busch is also slashing .301/.436/.517 with a .217 ISO. For the purposes of DFS, you’d probably like to see a little bit more power and a couple fewer walks, yet it’s difficult to complain when Busch’s salary remains below $5,000.
Then there’s the matter of Michael Lorenzen ($5,500). I’d say that the veteran at least doesn’t have to deal with Colorado’s altitude on Monday evening, but the wind will be blowing out at Wrigley, which is a similarly tough environment for pitchers. In Lorenzen’s 15 appearances in 2026, the right-hander has registered a ghastly 7.54 ERA. He’s also allowed left-handed opponents to hit .404 with a .497 wOBA. In short, he’s been terrible.
You have to love DraftKings’ quirks sometimes. Diaz hasn’t played an inning at third base since 2023, yet he still has positional eligibility there on the site, so you’ll be able to fit he and the aforementioned Busch into the same build. Success! Diaz is in the midst of yet another amazing season for the Rays, playing on one of the most team-friendly contracts in the sport. Across 286 plate appearances, Diaz is hitting .320 with a .399 OBP and a 152 wRC+. His .196 ISO is also the highest its been since all the way back in 2019 — the famous juiced ball season in MLB.
Tonight, Diaz will get the pleasure of facing the left-handed Eric Lauer ($5,800). While Lauer’s three starts with Los Angeles have been pretty good on the surface, I beg you all to not be fooled. Lauer’s still surrendered four long balls in 16.1 innings, it’s just that all four home runs have been solo shots. For the season as a whole, Lauer is giving up 2.56 opponent homers per nine — the second-highest rate of any pitcher with at least 50 innings thrown. That’s what happens when you combine a third percentile ground ball rate (28.4%) with fifth percentile average fastball velocity (90.7) in modern baseball. The implosion in Dodger blue is coming.
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