What It Means:

McCutchen will rest for the opener after he went 3-for-4 with 3 doubles and a walk in Wednesday's series finale against the St. Louis Cardinals. Bryan Reynolds will shift to designated hitter on Thursday. Josh Palacios will start in left field and hit cleanup while Connor Joe will man the other corner and hop up into the three-hole. Alfonso Rivas will play first base and hit seventh.

numberFire’s models project Reynolds ($3,600) for 10.6 and Rivas ($2,600) for 6.8 FanDuel points on Thursday. Per our MLB Heat Map, the Pirates' implied total is 4.03, fourth-lowest of the day, and the game total is 9.0. Steele has a strong 2.79 ERA and 3.50 xERA this season, with a 35.8% hard-hit rate, 23.2% strikeout rate, and 5.1% walk rate (top 91st percentile of MLB).