Oakland Athletics outfielder Seth Brown is not in the lineup for Monday's series opener against left-hander Framber Valdez and the Houston Astros.
The left-handed hitting Brown will take a seat against a southpaw. Jordan Diaz will shift to designated hitter while Kevin Smith takes over on third base and bats seventh. Nick Allen will start at shortstop and hit eighth for Oakland.
numberFire’s models project Diaz ($2,500) for 8.4 FanDuel points on Monday. Per our MLB Heat Map, the Athletics' implied total is only 3.26 while the game total is 8.5. Valdez has a 3.30 ERA in front of a 4.23 xERA this season while registering a mediocre strikeout rate (23.7%) and high hard-hit rate (45.3%). However, the lefty is only handing out walks at a 6.6% rate through 174 2/3 innings.
Source: MLB.com