Thursday brings us a small five-game main slate, and it's not one that's exactly brimming with pitching options. Your safest bet is locking in Gerrit Cole and throwing away the key, although you can always consider getting wild in large-field tournaments. Hitting is a bit more plentiful, with the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Astros, and Athletics occupying the top spots.

Our daily helper is available every day to analyze FanDuel's main slate and help give you a starting point when you're building lineups. Be sure to also incorporate our great tools into your research process. Whether you're looking for daily projections, the latest starting lineups and weather, or batting and pitching heat maps to find the best matchups -- we've got you covered! And don't forget to take a listen to The Solo Shot podcast with Jim Sannes, who breaks down the MLB daily fantasy slate each day.

On that note, let's highlight some of the top options for today's FanDuel main slate.

Pitchers to Target

High-Priced Pitchers

Gerrit Cole ($11,800 on FanDuel): Gerrit Cole towers over the rest of the field in both price and talent, and it wouldn't be shocking if he's by far the highest-owned overall player tonight. But it's all for good reason, as Cole has been one of the most dominant arms in the league this season, posting a 2.34 SIERA, 38.2% strikeout rate and 6.6% walk rate. Considering the next most expensive pitcher is Cole Hamels, that tells you about all you need to know about the rest of the arms on this slate. Pitching in hitter-friendly Globe Life Park isn't ideal, but the Texas Rangers are generous in handing out strikeouts, holding a 25.9% rate against right-handers. As they say, don't overthink things -- just get Cole in your lineups.