Tuesday's Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Streamers: Michael Wacha, Jacob Lopez and More

Let's jump right in today and look at five starting pitchers in action on Tuesday who are widely available in fantasy leagues and have good matchups. 

Most stats are from MLB.com, as are the probable pitchers. The full streamer rankings are listed at the bottom.

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Nestor Cortes, San Diego Padres @ San Francisco Giants

Cortes has only made three starts this year totaling 12 2/3 innings, otherwise missing a lot of time with injury. He hasn't been good in his short time: 10 hits, 10 runs, and six home runs allowed with 10 walks and 11 strikeouts. He has been much better over his career, holding both a walk rate and strikeout rate better than average, but Cortes has struggled mightily in a small sample as he has tried working around injury.

San Francisco is a bottom-10 offensive team over the full season, and their work over the previous month points to the same level of play. In the past 30 days, the Giants are in the bottom 10 (or very close to it) in runs, hits, doubles, home runs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS. The only place they do well is with drawing walks, where they are in the top 10 over the full season, but they don't do enough with those runners on base to capitalize.

Cortes is a low-level streamer right now. His career work says he is a better pitcher, but he hasn't had the chance to show anything in this truncated season, and I don't feel good trusting him, even if the matchup is right.

Matthew Liberatore, St. Louis Cardinals vs. Colorado Rockies

Liberatore is good with walks but also a below-average strikeout guy, a common type here on the streaming list. He gives up more than a hit per inning, but Liberatore is really good at limiting home runs, allowing one every 9.2 innings in his career and one every 10 innings in 2025.

The Rockies continue their run as the worst team in baseball, sitting 13 games behind the next worst group, the White Sox. They are especially brutal when playing away from their friendly home ballpark of Coors Field. When looking only at games teams play away from home, Colorado is last in runs, walks, batting average, and on-base percentage and second worst in hits, doubles, strikeouts, slugging percentage, and OPS.

Liberatore is a low-to-mid-level streamer. The matchup is right to put him here, but Liberatore has a ceiling because of his lower strikeout work. He is worth consideration if you need innings because the Rockies are just that bad.

Jacob Lopez, Athletics vs. Tampa Bay Rays

Lopez was listed here as a streamer before his last start against Washington, and it couldn't have gone much better: 7 2/3 innings, three hits, no runs, no walks, and 10 strikeouts. That's now three straight starts in which he hasn't allowed a run, though the previous outings only went five innings and 4 1/3 innings. He's very good with strikeouts and just a hair higher than average with walks, giving Lopez a strong base to start from.

Tampa Bay looked like a real playoff contender earlier in the year, but they have steadily decreased and now sit four games under .500 and five back in the wild card race. They still have a chance to make a run, as they have over 40 games remaining, but time is running short with four teams in front of them for the final wild card. The Rays are fairly average offensively over the full season, but in the last month, they are in the bottom five in runs, hits, doubles, strikeouts (most), and all four slash categories, looking inept with the bats.

Lopez is a mid-level streamer with obvious upside. We need to temper expectations just a bit; he won't keep putting up scoreless innings. This game also takes place in Sacramento, which has been close to Coors Field in terms of being a hitter's park. Lopez has been very good lately, but he's more of a good (or very good) option today than a must-start player.

Mitchell Parker, Washington Nationals @ Kansas City Royals

Michael Wacha, Kansas City Royals vs. Washington Nationals

We'll finish today with a pair of weak offenses. Both the Royals and Nationals are in the bottom five in home runs and the bottom 10 in both slugging percentage and OPS. Teams don't necessarily have to hit homers to find success, but Washington is also in the bottom 10 pretty much across the board, and Kansas City has drawn the fewest walks of any team. When they aren't getting free base runners and aren't getting fast runs, they have to labor for everything, a big reason they have scored the third-fewest runs, ahead of just the Pirates and Rockies.

Last season, Parker (a rookie at the time) was better than average with walks and right around average with strikeouts. He got hit a little bit, but it was a promising start for the then 24-year-old. It hasn't been as good this year, as Parker has a walk rate right near average but a strikeout rate far worse than average, down at 14.8% (versus league average around 22.5%). Parker did high-level strikeout work in the minors, so there's hope he can get back to that, but he hasn't seen any success in that area in 2025 and has given up more runs in the process.

The veteran Wacha is also a little down with strikeouts this season: at 18.2%, he is below 20% for just the third time in 13 seasons and the first time since 2019. He is still good with walks, and Wacha has given up just 116 hits and 12 homers in 131 1/3 innings, making for a sparkling 3.36 ERA. It's his fourth straight season with at least 23 starts and an ERA below 3.40.

Parker is a low-level streamer and Wacha a mid-level streamer. The former just hasn't found his touch in his second season, and while better days may lie ahead, we can't trust him much right now. Wacha keeps doing his thing, finding success even with his K% down, and he has the better matchup in this one.

Monday's Streamer Rankings

1. Michael Wacha, KC
2. Jacob Lopez, ATH
3. Matthew Liberatore, STL
4. Nestor Cortes, SD
5. Mitchell Parker, WAS