Weekly Pitching Guide – Apr 20- Apr 26

  • By Anthony Kates

    Last Updated on April 19, 2026 2:49 am by Anthony Kates | Published: April 19, 2026

    Every Sunday this season, I will share my pitching guide for that week. It will include a table of the projected 2-start starting pitchers and their opponents, with my recommendations on starts and sits, plus my pitching streams for the week.

    WordPress Data Table Plugin

    For my recommended pitching streams, I will only suggest pitchers who are rostered in fewer than 50% of Yahoo leagues. All starts are projected, but are subject to change due to injury, a team deciding to have a bullpen day, expand to a six-man rotation, etc. Stats are through Sunday morning.

    Monday, Apr 20

    Reynaldo Lopez – ATL – @ WAS – 40% rostered

    After missing all but one start in 2025, Lopez is off to a pretty good start to his 2026 season. He’s made four starts so far and thrown 20.2 innings, with a 2.18 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 19 strikeouts, eight walks and three home runs allowed. He’s doing a great job of limiting both quality hits (5.4% barrel rate) and hard hits (35.75 hard hit rate), minimizing average exit velocity (86.5 MPH) and keeping lien drives down (17.9% rate).

    The Nationals are a below league average offense against righties at home. Though they have a 102 wRC+, that is the 12th lowest in the league. Their .718 OPS is also the 12th lowest, their 9.3% walk rate is the 11th lowest, but their 19.1% strikeout rate is the seventh best. The have the fifth lowest line drive rate and the worst ground ball to fly ball rate (1.71 GB:FB) and the fifth lowest hard hit rate in the league.

    Tuesday, Apr 21

    Carmen Mlodzinski – PIT– @ TEX – 6%

    Mlodzinski might be experiencing a breakout right before our eyes. Over four appearances (three starts), he has thrown 20.1 innings, with a 1.77 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 20 strikeouts, eight walks and four earned runs allowe (zero home runs allowed). He has a 51.7% ground ball rate, just a 1.7% barrel rate (he’s limited quality hits throughout his big league time the past our seasons) and one of the best splitters in the league this season.

    The Rangers have the fifth lowest wRC+ against righties at home, 74, fourth lowest OPS, .612, and third lowest walk rate, 7.2%. They have just two hitters with 10-plus plate appearances against right-handed pitchers at home with an OPS over .646 and/or a wRC+ over 93 (Brandon Nimmo and Josh Jung). Only two players have hit home runs off of righties at home (Kyle Higashioka and Joc Pederson).


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    April 19, 2026, 2:49 am