every probable starter tonight — tap a row for the strikeout ladder and form
Pitcher
Opponent
Gavin WilliamsCLE · RHP
CIN
—
8+ Ks34%
Chris Sale✕ATL · LHP
NYM
7.5
22%
Peter LambertHOU · RHP
LAA
5.5
48%
Reid DetmersLAA · LHP
HOU
6.5
27%
Gerrit ColeNYY · RHP
CWS
6.5
27%
Taj BradleyMIN · RHP
KC
6.5
27%
Troy Melton✕DET · RHP
BAL
5.5
41%
Christian Scott✕NYM · RHP
ATL
5.5
35%
Logan Henderson✕MIL · RHP
SF
5.5
32%
Sandy AlcantaraMIA · RHP
PHI
5.5
32%
Aaron NolaPHI · RHP
MIA
5.5
32%
Michael KingSD · RHP
COL
5.5
32%
Gage Jump✕ATH · LHP
BOS
5.5
30%
Cade Cavalli✕WSH · RHP
TOR
4.5
42%
Chase BurnsCIN · RHP
CLE
6.5
27%
Dean Kremer✕BAL · RHP
DET
4.5
42%
Griffin Jax✕TB · RHP
TEX
5.5
28%
Landen Roupp✕SF · RHP
MIL
5.5
28%
Seth LugoKC · RHP
MIN
4.5
28%
Michael Lorenzen✕COL · RHP
SD
3.5
55%
Shane BieberTOR · RHP
WSH
4.5
28%
Colin Rea✕CHC · RHP
STL
3.5
50%
Slade Cecconi✕CLE · RHP
CIN
4.5
41%
Anthony Kay✕CWS · LHP
NYY
4.5
29%
Bubba Chandler✕PIT · RHP
AZ
3.5
57%
Brandon Pfaadt✕AZ · RHP
PIT
3.5
48%
Jake Bennett✕BOS · LHP
ATH
3.5
67%
Luis CastilloSEA · RHP
LAD
4.5
32%
34%
22%
48%
27%
27%
27%
41%
35%
32%
32%
32%
32%
30%
42%
27%
42%
28%
28%
28%
55%
28%
50%
41%
29%
57%
48%
67%
32%
▸Key — what do all these terms mean?
Big night (8+ K)
The chance this pitcher strikes out 8 or more — a genuinely dominant start. This is what the board is ranked by, tilted a little by the form meter. green = strong chance tonightyellow = borderlinered = low chance
✕ next to a name
Early-hook risk: something caps his night — a pitch limit, a quick manager, or an injury-return leash — so the monster strikeout night is blocked. Tap the row for the reason.
Projection
Our single best guess for tonight's strikeouts: the average of all 40,000 simulated starts, adjusted by how accurate our numbers have actually been this season.
Ceiling (top 10%)
His 90th-percentile night: one start in ten reaches this many strikeouts or more. The max-out number.
Tonight's form (0–10)
How good his stuff looks coming into tonight, from observable signs only: last-start velocity vs his norm, recent two-strike whiffs, rest days, how often the other lineup chases, and how long his manager lets him work. 5 is neutral; 7+ is rare (a couple per night across the league) and means the sim leans toward his best-stuff version. Hover or tap the bar for the ingredients.
Tail
The shape of his upside. low ceiling = little room above his typical night; normal upside = typical spread; big upside = real blow-up-the-box-score potential; second gear = when his best stuff shows up, the night jumps a whole tier.
Confidence (0–100)
How much the model trusts its own read — it drops when inputs are missing, the lineup isn't posted yet, or the pitcher's sample is thin. Under ~55 means treat the read loosely.
Big night blocked
Something concrete rules out the monster night no matter how good his stuff is — a pitch limit, a manager who pulls starters early, too many walks, or a lopsided matchup. The reason is on the badge.
Chance to clear the line
Once a line is posted, we show the plain chance he finishes above it — “6.5 line · 71% chance to clear it” means 71 of 100 simulated starts had 7 or more Ks. It's a fact from the simulation, not a pick: we never tell you to bet the over or the under.You decide.
Strikeout ladder
The chance he reaches each level, level by level — 4+ Ks, 5+, 6+, all the way up. Tap it open on any pitcher to see the whole staircase.
Lineup badge
lineup ✓ = the official card is posted and the sim used the actual nine hitters. no lineup= using the team's overall strikeout profile until the card drops (usually 2–4 hours before first pitch).
Arsenal matchup
Whether his best swing-and-miss pitch attacks a lineup that already whiffs a lot. A real out-pitch versus chase-happy bats nudges the projection up; a flat arsenal against contact hitters nudges it down.
Recent form
A gentle shade on the rate when his velocity or two-strike whiffs are trending away from his season norm — so an arm whose stuff is fading projects lower before the averages catch up.
Calibrated
The probabilities are re-mapped through a backtest of thousands of past starts, so “40%” means what it actually did historically — not just what the raw sim guessed. See the Results page for the curve.
Risk index (0–100)
How the night can go wrong, scored from six named ingredients: the chance of a dud (3 K or fewer), the early-exit chance, night-to-night swing, blind spots in the data, whether history agrees with the model, and any hard limits tonight. Low / moderate / elevated / high. High big-night % with low risk is the read you want; high % with high risk is a trap.
Scenarios
The three ways tonight actually plays out — his best stuff shows up, an ordinary night, or a rough early exit — each with its probability and typical strikeout total.
Correlated
You have lines on both starters in the same game. One game script — a blowout, rain, a bullpen day — can sink both at once. Not a prohibition, just exposure you should see.
Missing inputs
Data the model wanted but couldn't get tonight (named exactly). The sim used neutral defaults for those pieces and confidence took a haircut — nothing is ever made up.