We welcome back Yu Darvish and his seven different pitch types. I think he has more than that, but the data tells us he threw seven in his return.
It wasn’t a great result in the box score.
3.2 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 5 SO, 3 BB
But hey, 12 whiffs and a 19% SwStr% with a 35% Ball% shows that he still knows what he’s doing.
There are only seven pitchers in the league who have had an outing throwing seven different pitches at least five times each.
→ Seth Lugo → Paul Skenes → Walker Buehler → Colin Rea → Max Fried → Michael Lorenzen
and now Yu Darvish. You can see how much he wants to hide the fastball at this point in his career. He threw just 19 fastballs (the sinker, four-seamer, and cutter are what I can consider fastballs). The sinker was at 94.2, which isn’t bad velocity for a guy who is 68 years old.
I’d call it an encouraging debut for the vet.
The most interesting start of the night was by Zac Gallen. He was excellent onec again, this time against the Padres.
6 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 9 SO, 1 BB, 12.6% SwStr%, 36.9% Ball%
That makes for 13 innings with a 19:1 K:BB in his last two starts while allowing just one earned run on ten hits.
Nothing in the pitch mix has changed for these two starts. I guess he’s just been locating it well again. The data from these two starts:
He still isn’t getting whiffs with the four-seamer and has a moderate 34% Ball% on it, but he’s avoided the loud contact and apparently has spotted it very well, and that has set up his curveball which has been dominant with a 60% Strike%, a 31.3% SwStr%, and a 100% GB%.
I don’t know what will happen next. Gallen has always been a tough guy to predict, but he’s looking like a must-own guy again.
I led people astray on the Sean Burke thing. He did not look good at all against the Blue Jays. It was a tough matchup, and we figured it wouldn’t go super well. I’m still eyeing up the weekend start against Cleveland. But yeah, he gave back a lot of those command gains.
5 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 2 SO, 3 BB, 4.7% SwStr%
They took him deep three times. I’m not completely losing interesting, and if he goes out and dominates the Guardians this weekend with good command, I’ll still be invested in him for the second half, but this test was failed.
Shane Baz added 16 whiffs to his season total, but it wasn’t great for anybody’s ratios.
6 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 7 SO, 2 BB, 17% SwStr%, 39.4% Ball%
Remember that Baz made a big change on June 15th, adding a cutter to the pitch mix. Since then, he’s thrown it 29% of the time and has a 29.3% K% in five starts wtih a 9.0% BB%, a 15.7% SwStr%, and a 37.4% Ball%. That’s a 2.87 JA ERA when you mix in the 46% GB%. I’d like to have Baz on my fantasy teams right now, I don’t think he should be left on too many waiver wires out there.
It was a total disaster for Yoshinobu Yamamoto against the Brewers.
0.2 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 5 R, 0 SO, 2 BB, 41 pitches
They yanked him to save the arm. This was his worst start since that very first one on Opening Day last year in Korea.
But look, you cannot expect a guy to get out of the first inning when Andrew Vaughn is in the opposing lineup.
Kind of a weird pitch to hit out of the ballyard, but that’s just what the great Andrew Vaughn does.
I think it’s appropriate for me to tell you that Vaughn has been the second-unluckiest hitter in the league this year behind Luis Torrens. That’s if you measure it by the gap between wOBA and xwOBA.
I’m not saying he’s good. I’m saying he’s better than most people think. At the same time, he’s probably worse than I think he is. But I’ve had this guys back for years now and I believe in loyalty. Unless the loyalty doesn’t work out for me.
Jacob deGrom laid a stinker down against the Angels. That was hard to see coming.
5 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 5 SO, 2 BB, 11.6% SwStr%
That is far from a week-ruiner, but we were really primed up for a classic 10-punchy game from deGrom and he didn’t do it.
So my DFS lineup didn’t cash in the Hundo contests, I had deGrom + Kikuchi. The field was heavy on deGrom (62%), but also heavy on Cristopher Sanchez (46%) who scored 25 points. I was sunk.
But I’m going to win the $5 Hundo this month, I guarantee it.
The predictions made in the Slate Preview yesterday made up for it. I took a new approach to that and had a lot of fun writing it, and there were some really good calls in there. So of course I’m going to push that on you. Go, look and see how cool I looked.
Noah Cameron update:
Meh! He generates soft contact, but the K% still doesn’t look great and he doesn’t exactly have pristine command either. The fastball sucks, so he’ll have to do something about that.
But he was solid against the Pirates yesterday. He threw 109 freakin pitches!
7 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 7 SO, 1 BB, 16.5% SwStr%, 37.6% Ball%
Colt Keith and Josh Naylor were the top scorers offensively.
Naylor has had a productive season with his new team.
346 PA, .299/.358/.469, 11 HR, 11 SB
Not a ton of home run output, but everything else has been nice. And he’s already set a career high in steals with those 11. The K% has come down to 12.4%, also a career-best markk, and down four whole points from last year.
Keith is available in plenty of fantasy leagues. And you can understand why, even with the big game yesterday he still has just seven homers and zero steals on the year. That’s not getting it done in roto leagues. But the .264/.344/.435 slash line is pretty solid. Since June:
It’s a bit surprising to see just the three homers coming from a 13.7% Brl% (99 PAs). He has hit half of his barrels to center field, and he’s limited in what he can do with the exit velocity. So I think it’s fair to expect him to be a lower HR/Brl guy, but yeah, he’s hitting the ball really well over the last six weeks or so and he’s a strong guy to have in points leagues where the lack of homers and steals don’t hurt you as much.
Ceddanne Rafaela and Romy Gonzalez both went yard yesterday, they have been absolutely terrific lately. There’s a grain of salt here since they took on Austin Gomber and the Dodgers. But check these two out over the last month:
I looked closely at the Rafaela breakout yesterday. The quick summary of that is that Rafaela has improved his plate discipline and contact abilities, and over the last month or so he’s been able to lift and pull the ball a lot more. And that has turned into six homers in his last 72 PAs, an elite rate of a 12 HR/PA.
As for Gonzalez, he’s a much tougher add in fantasy leagues because he’s not playing much against righties. He’s started just three of the Sox last dozen games against righties. But he’s a great DFS play against left-handed starters. He’s #3 in the league in slugging against left-handed pitching.
Romy Gonzalez 2025 Splits
Rafaela is also better against lefties, but he’s been more than serviceable against righties as well and his centerfield defense keeps him in the lineup every day.
Ceddanne Rafaela 2025 Splits
I have to take the chance to talk about Agustin Ramirez again. He hit his 14th homer of the season (274 PA, that’s a full season pace of around 32 homers) last night. He’s now slugging .479 with a 19% K% and a 12.2% Brl%. He has a 110.3 EV90 with a 714% Contact% and 82% Z-Contact% over his last 115 PAs. He’s a legitimate power bat, and he seems to be getting better and better. He’s a must-start catcher, but you should’ve already known that!
Speaking of catchers, Carson Kelly has been good again. He’s at a .393/.471/.750 slash line with two homers over teh last two weeks and he’s at a .433 xwOBA. It’s an up-and-down wave with Kelly, but we saw early this year how well he can hit when he’s going right.
