MLB Studs Week 15
June 30 - July 6
Min PA
C - 13 PA
Field - 18 PA
* = Leads position
C - Will Smith (LAD)
.583*/.722*/1.083*/1.806* - 371 wRC+*
12 AB, 7 H, 5 BB, 2 HR, 2 RBI, 4 R, 2 K
The catcher position this year has kind of been a one horse race with Cal Raleigh turning into an Avenger, but we need to give props to the other backstops around the league showing out; Ramírez, Herrera, Goodman and Will Smith, who is having yet another wildly productive season behind the plate. It may not be as boisterous and demand as much attention as Cal putting 4 balls into the seats per week but nonetheless Smith is rocking a wRC+ just 5 points south of Cal’s at 177, and is posting a diabolical .991 OPS so far this season which is 3rd best in the league, not among catchers, among all hitters. Never have I ever seen top 3 in OPS consist of 2 catchers, but here we are. Smith is one of the best in the league at drawing walks and avoiding strikeouts as evidenced by his BB/K rate of 0.83 which sits tied for 10th league wide, or his 8th best 15% walk rate, all of which has produced a gaudy OBP of .434 which trails only the great one, Aaron Judge.
Will Smith might like to walk but that doesn’t mean he won’t swing the bat. In a game that didn’t have much going for the Dodger’s in the long run, Will Smith would score the only run of the night on a solo shot in the second inning off of a McCullers cutter that he left right down the gut. Smith wouldn’t get much more to hit from McCullers, walking on 4-straight breaking balls that missed away in the 3rd, and in the 6th another walk after laying off a bunch of pitches off the plate. He would see some more strikes once McCullers left the game following the 6th, and would single after an 8-pitch battle with Jason Alexander. Will has done this his entire career, while managing to still do enough damage with the bat that he’s often batting in the heart of the order; there’s nothing more valuable than not giving away at-bats, and Will Smith does not put together very many poor at-bats.
HM: S. Perez (KCR), V. Caratini (HOU), J.T. Realmuto (PHI), Y. Diaz (HOU), C. Kelly (CHC)
1B - Michael Busch (CHC)
.565*/.615*/1.174*/1.789* - 390 wRC+*
23 AB, 13 H, 2 BB, 2 2B, 4 HR, 7 RBI, 7 R. 8 K
Busch put together a great week on the road for the Cubs, gathering a 3-hit game against Cleveland and just terrorizing their division rival Cardinals over 3-games. Busch does a lot of things well, he only strikes out at a 22.6% clip and walks nearly half that much at 10.4%, and he uses all fields, but what stands out is his Launch Angle Sweet Spot Percent which is 41.1% meaning he’s finding the best launch angle available for batted balls almost half the time. His average launch angles across pitch types are nearly indistinguishable, all between 15-17 degrees, or as it’s known colloquially, they’re all line drives. He’s hitting everything hard and in the air and because of it he’s well on his way to surpassing his career high for almost every category from homers to ribbies to runs and more.
He has such a short swing and he’s willing to go the other way when that’s how he’s being pitched, and he did a bunch of that in Cleveland on the 1st. He had 3 knocks and all of them were up the middle and away. The Gavin Williams fastball away off the plate he took through the 5-6 hole, the Williams fastball up in the zone went right back up the middle, and the Jacob Junis attempt at a backdoor slider he took up the middle and off Junis’ leg. The Cubbies teed off on Miles Mikolas on the 4th of July, tagging him for 6 homers and 8 earned runs, and Busch was 2 of those long balls and 5 of the RBIs. Busch did not waste a lot of time with Mikolas, his solo homer in the 2nd was on the second pitch, and his jack in the 3rd came on the 1st pitch. Two pitches in the zone, two baseballs in the seats. And he isn’t a stud against southpaws but he still isn’t going to give an at-bat away. He’s better than his 2025 marks suggest and he did take lefty John King’s curveball over the fence in left-centre later that game.
HM: C. Walker (HOU), V. Pasquantino (KCR), P. Alonso (NYM), S. Torkerlson (DET), M. Olson (ATL)
2B - Jose Altuve (HOU)
.417*/.483*/.958*/1.441* - 281 wRC+*
24 AB, 10 H*, 4 BB, 2 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR*, 10 RBI*, 9 R*, 3 K, 1 CS
Jose Altuve can’t be stopped. Tied for the RBI lead among second basemen with 50, Altuve is only striking out 16% of the time and is also walking at half that clip. July 4th might not have been a fun day for LA fans at the ballpark but Astros fans had a great time, walloping the Dodgers 18-1 and watching their franchise figurehead reach base 5 times including 2 homers. Altuve is top 3 in nearly every offensive category for the Astros All-Time behind only Hall of Famers Bagwell and Biggio in many categories, and in 2025 he leads the Stros in runs, RBIs and total bases even at age 35.
His 5 RBIs on July 4th really helped his cause, home runs to left and right field would provide all of his ribbies, and he missed a third homer by less than 5 feet. He’s still crushing homers into the Crawford boxes and is on pace for another nearly 30 homer season even though his hard-hit rate is just 30%. Altuve has always been capable of taking borderline pitches for knocks, and given his low career K rate and middling walk rate, it makes sense that Jose will put borderline pitches in play. His swing-take decisions support this approach which is why his at-bat versus Noah Davis was so impressive. He actually saw Davis twice in one inning as the Astros put a 10-spot on the Dodgers in the 6th. After falling behind 0-2 on a couple sinkers, Altuve would take a beautifully located sweeper just off the plate to avoid the 0-2 strikeout and would proceed to take a 6-pitch walk. A few batters later, with 7 runs already scored in the inning, Noah Davis would challenge Altuve with 4-straight fastballs in the zone, and Altuve would take his opportunity and knock a 3-run shot over the fence in right field.
HM: B. Donovan (STL), J. McNeil (NYM), D. Schneider (TOR), J. Cronenworth (SDP)
3B - Addison Barger (TOR)
.421*/.476*/.842*/1.318* - 259 wRC+*
19 AB, 8 H*, 2 BB, 2 2B, 2 HR*, 9 RBI*, 4 R, 4 K, 1 SB*
The Jays are so hot right now and Barger’s bat is melting baseballs. His Week 15 max exit velocity of 109.4mph and his average exit velocity of 94.1mph both round out as 2nd best among third basemen for the week and his EV90 was the best among them at 107.3mph. Barger has a bit of a longer swing but also has some of the most elite bat speed, making it so that his bat spends a lot of time in the zone, but also makes explosive contact. This kid hits the ball insanely hard, insanely consistently, his year long average exit velocity of 93.6mph is tied with James Wood for 10th in the league, and he’s hitting balls 95+mph 55% of the time, just a physical force.
Barger didn’t see a lot of pitches to hit on the 3rd, but the ones he did see, he smoked. Two doubles off Clarke Schmidt in the 1st and 3rd on a fastball he’d take off the wall in left field and a knuckle curve that was sliced down the 3rd base line, he would do one better his next time up. The Jays chased Schmidt after 3 innings and Barger would tee off the next guy even better. Clayton Beeter started him off with a backdoor slider for a called strike, he tried the same thing on the next pitch, maybe he wanted it more down, but it did not get there. It did get to Barger’s barrel though and left it even faster as he took the hanger 400 feet into the Yankees bullpen for a solo shot. His fun for the week didn’t end there though, he walked off the Angels a few games later to make it 7-straight wins for the Blue Jays. Barger’s EV50 is shown below when compared to other third basemen; EV50 is a figure that averages out the hardest 50% of a hitters batted balls, giving us a good look at how well he’s having his strength translate to power.
HM: M. Muncy (ATH), A. Bohm (PHI), A. Riley (ATL), Z. McKinstry (DET)
SS - Willy Adames (SFG)
.455/.538/.818/1.357* - 277 wRC+*
22 AB, 10 H, 4 BB, 2 2B, 2HR, 9 RBI*, 5 R, 4 K
Willy Adames is starting to get on track after what was a disappointing start to the season for the recipient of the largest contract in Giants history. Slashing a mere .224/.312/.369 through the first half and that’s with it being propped up by his July numbers of .379/.471/.690. His struggles look to be in part caused by a 7.5% drop in how often he’s pulling the ball in the air and replacing that with more pulled ground balls which at 23% is his highest mark since 2020. But July is looking like the turning point, Willy started the month with hits in 7 straight including 2 3-hit games.
Luis Severino peppered him with hard stuff away in both their at-bats. After going up 2-0 Sevvy hit the black with a sinker on the outer half before leaving a sinker right down the middle, but lucky for him, Adames missed it. The next pitch Sevvy tried to bust him inside with yet another sinker but left it too far over the plate and Willy sent it back up the middle for a 2-run single. In his next at-bat he took 3 fastballs at the top of the zone and got lucky that the first one was called a ball before knocking another 2-run single, this time on a changeup. In his other 3-hit effort, Willy didn’t take as many strikes, he swung a lot actually, fouling off 7 pitches, most of them fastballs. He did catch up to a couple, one a 94mph fastball from Pfaadt that Willy launched to centre field for a 2-run shot, and another fastball that he hit off the pitcher Ginkel. He walked as much as he struck out last week as well, not that walking is uncommon for him but his 17% strikeout rate in July is an improvement of 10% compared to his season up until that point. It’s unfortunate that this hot streak is beginning as we head into the All-Star Break but maybe some rest will allow him to get back to it when we return.
HM: T. Story (BOS), G. Perdomo (ARI), B. Witt Jr. (KCR), F. Lindor (NYM)
OF 1 - George Springer (TOR)
.462*/.517/1.038*/1.556 - 327 wRC+*
26 AB, 12 H*, 3 BB, 5 HR*, 13 RBI*, 9 R*, 3 K, 1 SB
Uncle George still got it. George Springer was the best player in baseball last week, crushing his second grand slam in the last 2 weeks and playing hero in Toronto on Canada Day. After a mellow start walking in his first at-bat against Max Fried, Springer turned up the heat. In his next at-bat he’d swing through a sweeper at the belt on the outer third, but after a battle of a few more pitches, Fried would try to sneak something into the zone for a called third strike, a curveball this time, but George didn’t take it or roll it over, he crushed it 400+ feet to left field to kick off what would be a 4-run inning for the Jays. It was a tie game in the 7th inning before Mark Leiter Jr and a catcher’s interference loaded the bases for New York’s beloved Luke Weaver. There’s really nothing to say about the at-bat, fastball, grooved, Luke knew it, George knew it, we knew it, it was a Canada Day grand slam and the Blue Jays blew the game open.
Springer is chasing less than 20% this year and is hitting everything hard and collecting barrels. His average exit velocity isn’t outrageous, outside the top 100, his 106 hard hit balls jumps him to 75th and he’s an even better 22nd in number of barrels this year. And this guy is 35. More barrels than Buxton, Tatis and Story, more hard hit balls than Cruz, Harper and Pages, Uncle George can still get it done. The experience is really showing as his OPS with RISP is .900 and hasn’t been this high since 2018-2020 with Houston and their system. He’s walking, not punching out, hitting clutch, what’s there left for him to do, steal bags? Well, yeah he’s got 10 already. Toronto is looking dangerous and so is Georgie.
OF 2 - Aaron Judge (NYY)
.450/.586*/1.000/1.586* - 303 wRC+
20 AB, 9 H, 7 BB*, 2 2B, 3 HR, 7 RBI, 7 R, 4 K
Aaron Judge is a freak, full stop. Slugging .940 on fastballs, 26% barrel rate, 95mph average exit velocity, and a run value of 17 on 4-seamers. Even with some of the worst whiff numbers of his career, Aaron Judge is still the pinnacle of production when it comes to offensive profiles in baseball. Judge was on base every game during Week 15, notched multiple walks in 3 games and an extra-base hit in 4. In the Canada Day game in Toronto, Judge was on base 5 times with 3 walks and 2 hits and showed off the hand-strength when he took a Gausman fastball that he painted on the inside black into the opposite field gap for a double. Judge barely swung the bat in this one, a single, a double and one foul ball, besides that, Judge took it easy and sauntered to first 3 times in the Jays routing of the Yankees. A few pitches went his way in this one that helped him secure those walks, but that’s the kind of respect you get from the blue when you’re the type of hitter Judge has proved himself to be.
The next game was more of the same for Judge, his 6th game in a row with a walk, and owning the inner third of the strike zone. He annihilated a Yimi Garcia sweeper that clipped the inner third of the strike zone 440 feet into the back portion of the second deck at the Roger’s Centre that left his bat at 112mph. The crazy thing is this wasn’t even his hardest hit ball of the day, a few innings earlier he would take a sinker back up the middle that would’ve killed José Berríos if it had hit him, just like any 118.1mph projectile would. This base knock would immediately register as the 3rd hardest hit ball of the year. On batted ball events for Judge on July 2nd, he has an average exit velocity of 106.3mph, but you take into account only hit base hits, that number jumps to 112.3mph. Simply said, Aaron Judge is not human; hitting for power, average, on pace for 12+ stolen bases and playing a Gold Glove right-field, is just not something you see wrapped up in one ball player. The Triple Crown is an elusive title for Major League hitters, much more elusive than it is for pitchers, we’ve only seen one Triple Crown award given out offensively in the last 58 years and that was the Miguel Cabrera 2012 year. Judge’s average bests Jacob Wilson’s by around 20 points but the race for homers and RBIs is in full force with superstar slugger Cal Raleigh. The second half should lead to some late season fireworks in this regard.
OF 3 - Ceddanne Rafaela (BOS)
.400/.400/.950/1.350 - 269 wRC+
20 AB, 8 H, 5 2B*, 2 HR, 5 RBI, 5 R, 2 K, 1 CS
The player flying under the radar the most and one of the biggest All-Star Snubs this year is none other than Ceddanne Rafaela. Raf has been floating in trade talks since the pre-season with the industry recognizing the logjam the Sox have gotten themselves into with their young talent being ready for big league promotions. Ceddanne was widely seen as a glove-first centre-fielder with average or more accurately, below average offensive production capabilities, with a wRC+ of 80 in his first full season in the bigs last year. Given those perceived weaknesses, he found himself at the front of trade rumours surrounding the Sox team looking to make room for their future. But Rafaela heard the rumours and locked in for 2025, raising his wRC+ to 114, besting Duran by 13, and falling just short of Abreu’s 122, but Ceddanne still has a WAR more than 1 full point better than Abreu.
In 2025, Rafaela is the 3rd best centre-fielder in baseball by WAR and is tied for second in the bigs for outs above average. Only Nick Allen has a better OAA, and among outfielders, Ceddanne is tied for 1st with PCA, a known ball-hawk and contender for a platinum glove, but if that’s the case, the same love has to be given to Rafaela. And he’s not just a defensive wizard right now, he might not walk a lot, but his strikeout rate is below 20% and he’s catching barrels at a rate that has him 30th in the league with 33, and moreover, is 36th in blasts with 85. Blasts are characterized by squaring up a ball, and meeting it with a high enough bat speed. He’s 1 behind Tucker for blasts, ahead of PCA, Peña and Buxton, all having career years in the power and production department. Boston has seen their playoff chances climb steadily the last month or so. Ceddanne is hitting .352/.378/.789 since June 20th, with 17 extra-base hits, 20 ribbies and only 9 strikeouts. In terms of All-Star snubs, Ceddanne bests Julio in nearly every meaningful metric including WAR, OPS, wRC+, homers, doubles, and nearly every defensive measurement of a player. There’s a lot of things to be excited about for Red Sox fans this year and beyond if their centre-fielder can continue to progress as a hitter.
HM: S. Suzuki (CHC), J. Dominguez (NYY), P. Crow-Armstrong (CHC), R. Arozarena (SEA), J. Chourio (MIL)
SP 1 - Zack Wheeler (PHI) vs SDP, vs CIN
2 W, 2 QS, 17 IP*, 7 H, 1 HR, 1 ER, 22 K*
We talk a lot at Best Damn Sports about consistency, longevity and 3 year peaks, we’ve dove into Logan Webb’s sustained dominance but perhaps the most consistently productive pitcher the last decade is none other than Zack Wheeler. In his age 35 season, Wheeler is looking for his first World Series Championship and surprisingly his first CY Young Award. Wheeler was the runner up to the prestigious pitching award on two separate occasions, including last year to Chris Sale’s Triple Crown campaign and in 2021 when he lost to Corbin Burnes in what many baseball fans think was Wheeler’s year. Burnes had him in terms of standard stats; ERA, WHIP, ER, BB, K/9, but Wheeler had nearly 50 innings on Burnes, over 2.0 more WAR, and managed to pitch 3 complete games, racking up 213.1 inning pitched, just the year after a COVID shortened season allowed him to pitch just 71 innings. This age of consistent 200 inning eaters is over and so, to see a guy come out to pitch a full 32 game slate the year after pitching in just 11 games is impressive on its own. As it seems to go for Wheeler, in what is possibly the best season of his career he’s up against the odds again, this time a 23 year old phenom named Paul stands in his way, who’s having maybe the best individual season by a pitcher we’ve seen this decade.
In Week 15, Wheeler would host the Padres and Cincinnati and would fall 1 inning short of throwing 2 complete games in one week, which I’m fairly certain has not been done in a very long time. Wheeler is enjoying a K% near 34% which ranks 2nd best in the bigs along with his 2nd best K-BB% of 27.9%. He’d show off these skills last week, not walking a single batter over 17 innings pitched and only allowing a single run to score on an Austin Hays solo shot. His fastball versus Cincinnati racked up a sickening 13 whiffs plus 7 called strikes which accounted for nearly half of the fastballs he threw. With his elite extension and a drop in arm slot with the Phillies, Wheeler’s fastball has become one of the most notorious in the league, he punched out 6 Reds on fastballs up in the zone, and threw it indiscriminately against lefties and righties. After starting with a few sweepers that backed up on him, he strayed from the pitch for the most part, that said, besides the mistake fastball to Hays, Wheeler was lights out, retiring the last 15 batters in a row for his 5th career complete game.
SP 2 - Zac Gallen (ARI) vs SFG
W, QS, 7 IP, 5 H, 1 HR, 1 ER, 10 K
One strong start is not enough for me to proclaim the return of Zac Gallen, but the 10 punchouts and no walks against the Giants is a positive sign. It was his first outing recording 0 walks since April 2nd, in his 2nd start of the year when he dominated the Yankees, but as positive of a sign as that is, he is still giving up home runs to a career high degree and has only recorded 6 starts this year without giving up a long-ball. He’s struggled a great deal this year with missing bats, and while his swinging strike rate is almost identical to 2022, his swing rate on pitches out of the zone is down 5% this year. His swing and miss numbers were better in this one, racking up this 3rd best figure on the year at 13.9%, but he did surrender an average exit velocity over 96mph and gave up 10 hard hit balls which was tied for his worst hard hit percentage of the year at 66.7%. While there were positive signs from Gallen in this start, there are still massive question marks surrounding not only his game-to-game productivity, but how this will impact his trade value and the position this leaves the DBacks in with him in a contract year.
He was much better with his knuckle curve location in this one, leaving it below the zone more times than not compared to previous starts (see figure). Hitters only put one knuckle curve in play in this game which was his best mark of the year, it was an RBI groundout for Patrick Bailey in the 2nd that would go down as an unearned run due to a throwing error from Alek Thomas. Of his 10 punchouts, 4 of them came on knuckle curves including two strikeouts that bounced on Yastrzemski. Gallen’s fastball command has taken a big step back this year and the changeup is not falling below the zone the way you’d like, combined with barely throwing his cutter and slider his last few starts, he’s going to need to sharpen up the command and mix in other offerings or risk becoming a 2-pitch pitcher who’s fastball continues to get hit hard.
SP 3 - Eury Pérez (MIA) vs MIN
W, QS, 6 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 7 K
I might not be comfortable saying Gallen is back, but I am absolutely on the “Eury is back” train. To clarify, I was never on the “Eury is bad” train, and I knew all he was going to need was time and opportunity in his return from Tommy John, and in his 5th start since being activated he seems to have found it. Striking out 7 while allowing just 1 hit and 1 walk and stacking up a sickening 20 whiffs and another 11 called strikes, he showed off exactly the type of arm we’ve always believed him to have. What makes this even more impressive is that he diced up this Twins team on essentially 2 pitches, fastball and slider, throwing his changeup and curveball a total of 9 times combined and not throwing a single sinker per BaseballSavant metrics. We know the fastball is borderline demonic, but the changeup was such a huge weapon for him previously, that I expected it to be mixed in a bit more but it really wasn’t necessary. With the fastball moving the way it was and being located to the degree he was able to, I guess the game plan was “don’t change what ain’t broken”.
Eury was painting with his fastball; inside to righties, away to lefties and upstairs to everyone. I loved the aggression from the 22 year old and I don’t blame the Fish for calling his game the way they did. It’s been almost two years since the majors have seen Eury and his pitch menu, and if the hitters aren’t showing they’re catching onto your game plan, why stray from it and show them the other cards you’re holding? The fastball was the most thrown pitch in nearly every count and registered a Stuff+ rating of 123 on the day and had a 128 Pitching+ rating as well. If Eury’s fastball continues to limit runs to the rate it has so far (wFA/C of 2.17); which puts him 16th in the big leagues, ahead of Skenes, Schwellenbach and DeGrom, when he does decide to start showcasing more of the secondaries, big league hitters are going to be in serious trouble. His next outing comes on the road in Cincinnati, who just got diced up by Zack Wheeler’s fastball, and I foresee another nightmare afternoon for Reds’ hitters off of Eury’s heater.
SP 4 - Tarik Skubal (DET) @ CLE
QS, 7 IP, 3 H, 10 K
Tarik Skubal is inevitable. Another outing with double digit punchouts and 0 walks, marking his 3rd of the season, leaves him just 1 away from tying the guys like Corbin Burnes, Clayton Kershaw and Pedro Martínez for the most of such outings in a single season. This combination of stuff and control is other-worldly, and he especially loves to pitch against his AL Central rivals the Cleveland Guardians. In his last two starts against the Guards he’s pitched 16 innings, struck out 23 and has not walked a single batter or given up an earned run, that is an outrageous level of inter-divisional dominance. In 5 starts against his divisional opponents in 2025, Skubal is 2-0, 0.51 ERA, 1 CGSHO, 35 IP, 15 H, 2 BB, and has struck out 47 of the 120 batters he’s faced, it’s just not fair.
Skubal is 18 starts into his 2025 campaign and still owns a K% of near 34% and a miniscule walk rate of 3.2% which is top 1 percentile in the league. Not only is Skubal really good, he’s really mean; constantly toying with right-handed hitters on the outer half of the zone, dotting 100mph fastballs and waving a psychotic changeup by them more often than not (SwStr on CH & FB shown in figure). In this start against the Guardians, Skubal’s changeup ranged from 84.4mph to 90.9mph and he threw it 43% of the time and in every count so it’s safe to say it isn’t a surprise to hitters what they’re about to get from the southpaw. Skubal is sporting a mind boggling 48.6% whiff rate on his changeup this year and you can see the frustration in the demeanour of hitters when they swing over it and they know it’s likely going to be right there on the next pitch yet again, and they’ll miss it yet again. This guy is really a wizard, and he’s really a head case, 100mph paint on the outer half, followed by 90mph changeups down and away, and just when you think you’ve got his sequencing figured out, and you start leaning over the plate, he busts you inside with an almost 100mph sinker that nearly breaks your bat and both your hands. The recipe for Skoob is really as simple as “heat and fear” and he’s cooking up another frightening campaign in 2025.
SP 5 - Edward Cabrera (MIA) vs MIN, VS MIL
W, L, 2 QS, 14 IP, 7 H, 1 BB, 2 ER, 11 K
The Fish are one of the hottest teams in baseball the last 3 weeks, they have an MLB 4th best record of 13-7 in that time and have been pitching out of their collective minds. Since June 17th the Marlins have a league leading 3.36 FIP, HR/9 (0.78), and WHIP (1.04), and Cabrera has been the head of the monster. With 3 runs or fewer allowed in an 11th consecutive start and his third quality start since June 17 he’s only allowed 12 hits in 25+ innings pitched. Week 15 held a number of positive indicators for Cabrera, his scoreless outing versus Minnesota was his third of the season, the first since May 31, and the first that went above 6 innings, let alone 7 and his start against the Brewers would be the first time this season he would not allow a walk during a start.
Using a pretty even pitch mix against Minnesota, Cabrera had the kitchen sink working in this one, he was able to land every one of his pitches for strikes and threw them all in any count he wanted to. In 0-0 counts he pitched 8 called strikes and made use of the curveball, slider and sinker, setting the hitter up to honour the breaking stuff as he goes on to continually expand the zone as the count progresses. Cabrera throws everything hard, even the changeup, so when he’s able to command the bottom of the zone, he can really make efficient work of lineups. The changeup and sinker are both thrown 90+mph with the changeup averaging almost 93mph, topping out at 97.6mph (horrifying) and generating a ton of ground balls (63%) while the sinker tends to induce more fly balls. Of the 9 ground outs he induced, 5 of them came on the changeup, and one of his 2 hits allowed came on an infield single off of a changeup as well that went for a hit due to the infield shift. Miami is climbing the standings right now and making a push for a wild card berth, if they’re going to get that far they need to continue to get solid pitching performances from their starters and get Sandy back on track.
HM: P. Skenes (PIT), G. Kirby (SEA), M. Boyd (CHC), J. Ryan (MIN), R. Ray (SFG), L. Castillo (SEA), Y. Yamamoto (LAD), B. Woodruff (MIL), B. Woo (SEA), M. Keller (PIT), G. Holmes (ATL), R. Nelson (ARI)