FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Thursday 5/23/19

With the majority of Thursday's games taking place in the afternoon, we get only two games on tonight's main slate, which locks a little earlier than usual (at 6:10 p.m. ET). The Houston Astros and Tampa Bay Rays check in with tonight's highest implied totals, though as you might expect on a slate like this, nothing is really off the table.

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

Lucas Giolito ($8,400 on FanDuel): It says everything you need to know about this slate when the pitcher with the most strikeout upside also happens to be on the wrong end of the Astros' slate-high 5.10 implied total. But a 28.6% strikeout rate isn't anything to scoff at, as Giolito is finally beginning to show some of the potential that once made him a highly-touted prospect. After struggling mightily in 2018, Giolito has completely abandoned his sinker this year, and between his new pitch mix and some improved velocity, he's practically an entirely new pitcher. The rise in punchouts are backed by a career-best 11.7% swinging-strike rate, and his 3.93 SIERA is leaps and bounds better than last year's horrific 5.37 mark. Even so, this is the Astros we're talking about, and Giolito still has a concerning 10.3% walk rate, so we can't rule out things going south in a hurry -- like the implied total, well, implies. But Giolito has three starts of 48 or more FanDuel points this year, which is something none of tonight's other starters can claim.