The only afternoon game of the day is featured on Fox Sports One, with the Yankees trying to get back the game lost last night against the Red Sox. Luis Severino takes on Chris Sale. Severino shares a number of good qualities with Sale (the listing was designed to get them as close together as possible). Both strike out batters at a high rate with few walks. Both have decent, but not great home run rates. Sale is much better at all of those, but he is also much more experienced. The Yankees hope Severino takes a similar path.
Lance Lynn tries to get the Cardinals their first win of the second half as he takes on Pirates sophomore star Jameson Taillon. Lynn split his two starts against the Pirates, pitching great in one game and poorly in the other. Both were at home, but he owns a 4.86 ERA career in Pittsburgh. Taillon owns a 1.98 ERA in five starts since returning from the disabled list.
Philadelphia tries to stop the Milwaukee juggernaut as Aaron Nola faces Jimmy Nelson. Nola pitches well with runners on base (.219 BA allowed), but with runners in scoring position that goes up to .254. So if there is just a man on first, he’s great. Unfortunately runners are 10 for 10 against Nola stealing, so he tends to allow the worse situation to happen. Nelson is posting the best season of his career, as he greatly increased his strikeout rate while lowering his walk rate. He changed his delivery last season, and increase his strength this off-season.
This is what happened with Brewers starting pitcher Jimmy Nelson. He switched last season to a modified, shortened delivery that makes it appear as if he is pitching from the stretch. But he continued to struggle in the second half (5.79 earned run average over his last 21 starts), a frustrating situation.
Fast forward to this spring, when Nelson made other improvements. He strengthened his lower half through Pilates, dropped some pounds, continued working on fine-tuning his mechanics.
So far, so good.
Alex Wood goes for his 11th win without a loss as he battles the Marlins and Jose Urena. Wood allowed just two home runs this season in 80 2/3 innings, both came on the road. Urena performs his worst this season with runners in scoring position, allowing a .292/.373/.523 slash line.
Madison Bumgarner returns to the mound for the Giants to face the Padres and Jhoulys Chacin. Bumgarner pitched to some bad luck before his off-field injury, 3-0 despite a 3.00 ERA. He struck out 28 and walked just four in 27 innings, and pitched a complete game. Chacin takes advantage of Petco Park, 5-2 with a 1.68 ERA at home, 3-5 with a 7.95 ERA on the road.
Finally, Corey Kluber and the Indians battle Paul Blackburn and the Athletics. Kluber is on an impressive role since the start of June, 4-1 with a 1.29 ERA in eight starts. That includes six games in which he struck out ten batters. Blackburn is off to an interesting start to his career. In two starts, he owns a 0.66 ERA, allowing just two walks and striking out just four batters. He allows the ball to be put in play, meaning the Oakland defense needs to be at it’s best when he is pitching. So far, that has been the case as the BABIP against him is just .227. While he doesn’t miss bats, he does appear to miss good contact, as only 11% of balls in play against him were scored as line drives. We’ll how long this lasts.
Enjoy!
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2t24Sry
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