Normally, I like a good 10-game slate in daily fantasy baseball. Tonight, though, it’s a real strange setup, as we get a group of ragtag pitchers to go along with just about all of the grind-it-out boring offenses in MLB. MORE: Optimal DFS lineup | Waiver Wire | Prospect rankings | Fantasy football rankings Max Scherzer headlines the pitching for tonight, but even he is in a difficult situation going up against the red-hot Cubs....

READ MORE: Today’s SP rankings | Hitter matchups to exploit | Get ready for fantasy football The DFS MLB Playbook PRO comes with a full top 10 at each position every day, optimal lineups for each DFS site, deep stats and daily projections, suggested lineup “stacks,” hitting and pitching strategies, a live DFS scoreboard to track your players and much more. Check out today’s free DFS plays below, and check out FantasyAlarm....

READ MORE: Today’s SP rankings | Hitter matchups to exploit | More DFS content The DFS MLB Playbook PRO comes with a full top 10 at each position every day, optimal lineups for each DFS site, deep stats and daily projections, suggested lineup “stacks,” hitting and pitching strategies, a live DFS scoreboard to track your players and much more. Check out today’s free DFS plays below, and check out FantasyAlarm....

READ MORE: Today’s SP rankings | Hitter matchups to exploit The DFS MLB Playbook PRO comes with a full top 10 at each position every day, optimal lineups for each DFS site, deep stats and daily projections, suggested lineup “stacks,” hitting and pitching strategies, a live DFS scoreboard to track your players and much more. Check out today’s free early DFS plays below, and check out FantasyAlarm.com’s premium product when you’re ready to go PRO!...

First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. ET in Baltimore with the Braves-Orioles. READ MORE: SN Fantasy | Daily hitter splits | MLB DFS picks Editor’s note: Play daily fantasy baseball for cash! FanDuel is hosting a $150,000 league for today’s MLB games, and first place wins $15,000. Enter now! STARTING PITCHER RANKINGS CALL TO THE ‘PEN There wasn’t much in the way of closer developments over the weekend, but consider that the calm before the storm....

Playbook PRO members get even more daily fantasy basketball picks, along with detailed analysis and strategies, suggested team “stacks” and optimal daily fantasy lineups. Also, PRO members get access to all the DFS Playbooks and tools for every sport, including NFL, college football and NHL, with one subscription. So, check out tonight’s free daily fantasy basketball plays below, and check out FantasyAlarm.com’s premium product when you’re ready to go PRO!...

Also, PRO subscribers get rankings of 65 players broken down by position based on quality of play waiting for you in the DFS NFL Rankings section. Even better, one Playbook PRO subscription gets you access to all of Fantasy Alarm’s DFS strategy and tools for NFL, NBA, NHL and college football as well. So, check out the free version of the daily fantasy football Playbook below, and get even more DFS values, strategies and sleepers with Playbook PRO!...

Based on FanDuel prices for the Patriots, Broncos, Cardinals and Panthers, here’s who we like and don’t like for Sunday’s conference championship games. MORE: Full player rankings | FanDuel tourney lineup | Cash-game lineup Stud: Cam Newton, Panthers ($8,500). Game flow wasn’t in Newton’s favor last week. The Panthers got a big lead early with their traditional running game and defense, and didn’t need much from Cam against the Seahawks....

The goal here is to find that daily fantasy football edge in GPP tournaments so you can avoid stacking too many highly owned players. That differentiation is key to cashing, especially if you’re looking for big prizes. MORE: Week 15 fantasy football rankings:Quarterbacks | Running backs | Wide receivers | Tight ends | Defenses | Kickers Who will be the highest owned QBs in Week 15? Cam Newton ($9,400/QB2) has been a fixture among the highest-owned quarterbacks for weeks now....

When the consensus plays fail, the overall scoring decreases and the opportunity for profit increases dramatically. This is also where the best contrarian DFS strategies are brought to light. When the chalk hits, we rarely scroll to the last-place teams and examine the different ways to construct a lineup. After all, there’s no reason to because events happened as expected. However, we can’t ignore contrarian lineups this week – they won all the money....

The Associated Press reported this week that Matsuzaka, 38, was shut down by his current team, the Chunichi Dragons, after an “overzealous admirer” yanked his pitching arm while pursuing an autograph at a team event in Okinawa. The Dragons say Matsuzaka is dealing with shoulder pain and inflammation in the arm. The fact Matsuzaka is still pitching may surprise observers who thought he was destined for a shortened career after being used heavily during his prep career in Japan....

The Sunday Guardian journalist Abinandan Mishra released a picture of the suspect, a Chinese woman named Song Xiaolan. He added: “Bihar police has released an alert about a suspect Chinese national who is on a mission to attack Dalai Lama who is right now in Bodh Gaya.” The village of Bodh Gaya, in the Indian state of Bihar, is considered one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites. On Thursday, the Dalai Lama, known as Gyalwa Rinpoche to the Tibetan people, addressed a gathering in the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Bodh Gaya, according to a Hindustan Times report....

On Sunday, he also saw him tie the 76-win mark in the NASCAR Cup series of his father, Dale Earnhardt Sr. It’s a mark Jeff Gordon also hit before retiring from the sport. MORE: Photos from Atlanta race | Jimmie Johnson ties Dale Earnhardt victory mark And while Earnhardt Jr. expected Johnson to hit the mark, he says it wasn’t until he got out of his car on Sunday that he realized that it had happened....

Earnhardt, who has seven career restrictor-plate wins, earned his eighth second-place restrictor-plate finish — and his second in the four plate races this year — as he once again came up one spot short Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway. This one might have been more frustrating than the others. Earnhardt led 38 laps and was in position to make a move on the final lap but never got a chance because of a wild crash and caution flag before he got to Turn 3 on the final lap of the Camping World RV Sales 500....

But the fun part of the celebration is the “ring the bell,” where all the employees get to ring a bell with the race winner. PHOTOS: Daytona 500 | MORE: Race winners, losers | Jr. joins Twitter Earnhardt truly relishes that moment. He has a prediction for the bell celebration that he expects will take place in a few weeks. “They better have another bell,” Earnhardt said as he plans to ring and ring and ring the bell so much it might break....