Yesterday we covered Daily Joust's Solo contests and discussed some basic strategy, so now it's time to put that strategy into action. I entered a couple Solo contests the past two days using the strategy we discussed. Let's take a look at my lineups to see how I've done so far!

The goal of the MLB Solo contests on Daily Joust is to score 60 or more points. If you score 60 or more points you win! It's that easy. As we mentioned in our strategy post yesterday the key to winning on Daily Joust is picking the right starting pitcher. I went with the Giants' Madison Bumgarner and was rewarded with a 29 point performance! Bumgarner had a great matchup against the futile Chicago Cub offense. He pitched 8 strong innings before giving up two earned runs in the 9th inning. He was actually on the bench when Soriano hit the 3 run homerun, but two of the runs were credited to him. Luckily, the Giants held on for the win and Bumgarner got me an extra 7 points!

Thanks to Bumgarner's stellar 29 point performance I only needed 31 points from my offense to win the solo contest. I chose Jason Kipnis as my 2nd basemen and he came through with 19 points. The rest of my offense had a decent night (except for Toronto's Jose Bautista) and I scored a total of 74 points. It was a $5 Solo contest, so I won the $9 prize ($4 profit).

Here's my lineup for today's Daily Joust Solo contest. It's early in the afternoon and there's a lot of baseball left to play so I'm not sure if I'll win yet. I'm off to a good start though as I have 13 points from my offense in the 3rd inning of the Red Sox @ Blue Jays game. Today's schedule only had one early game, so I took four Red Sox players and one Blue Jay. I targeted players that make good contact and score runs. I liked Boston's matchup against Kyle Drabek, so I took Adrian Gonzalez, Ryan Sweeney (value play), Daniel Nava, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. I switched in Rajai Davis at the last second to round out my OF. I targeted Robinson Cano and Miguel Cabrera for their reliability and explosiveness, but took a risk taking them because the NYY and DET lineups have not been released. If possible try to avoid selecting players before they are confirmed starters. After last night's success with Bumgarner I decided to pick on the Cubs again and took Matt Cain as my SP.

I'm not in love with my lineup today, but feel pretty confident I'll hit the 60 point plateau. I had to deal with the staggered start times, unknown lineups, and a few last minute changes. When building your Solo contest lineups its important to remember that you don't need the 'best' lineup. Don't swing for the fences because you won't win any extra money for putting up the highest score that day. Look for steady, reliable players that score points day-in and day-out. 

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