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Fantasy Baseball Forecaster Week 5: April 21-27

Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes is at the center of a highly anticipated showdown between the Pirates and the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday. Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

Fantasy baseball's Week 5 gets off to an earlier-than-usual start, as Monday is Patriots' Day in Boston, meaning the annual morning Boston Red Sox game to mark the occasion. The finale of the Red Sox's weekend wraparound series at Fenway Park against the Chicago White Sox has a scheduled 11:10 a.m. ET start time, the only Monday game beginning earlier than 6 p.m. ET. Prepare your lineups accordingly!

Week 5 is the first traditional week (meaning excluding the opening weekend) of the fantasy season in which we have teams scheduled for as few as five games. Both the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers have five-game weeks due to their week-opening, two-game series at Chicago's Wrigley Field.

We'll get another Paul Skenes-Shohei Ohtani showdown, as the Pittsburgh Pirates ace and Dodgers megastar are projected to square off at Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium on Friday. In six career head-to-head matchups, Skenes has struck Ohtani out three times, while Ohtani has a single and a home run. Skenes' 5.73 ERA against the Dodgers in two career starts is his highest against any opponent, and he has only 21 fantasy points in them (a total he has achieved in 10 of his 27 career starts individually). This will be one of the right-hander's toughest assignments all year.


Lineup Lock Times

Scheduling quirks for Week 5

Starting pitchers for Week 5

Hitting charts for Week 5