David Price, Boston Red Sox - Feeling down on your season? You can count on the Braves to turn that all around in one start. Price tossed eight innings allowing two runs while striking out 14 Braves batters in route to his third win of the season. The outing lowered his ERA to 5.76 on the season but Price as been a far better pitcher than that this season. He's allowing just .91 HR/9 while striking out over 13 batters per nine showing why his FIP is a microscopic 2.40 compared to his ERA. Based on his pitch type chart on Fangraphs Price has double the rate at which he throws his two seam fastball which with the additional movement could be why he's allowing contact on just 67% of pitches in the zone, well down from his career rate of nearly 85%.
Jose Abreu, Chicago White Sox - Abreu has been struggling heavily to this point in the season using a 2-for-5 game Tuesday to bring his average UP to .190. Right now looking at his batted ball charts, he's pulling the ball at the highest rate of his career and he there's a possibly link between that and his soft contact rate being on the rise. Brooks Baseball can link that a little more with Abreu picking up just four hits on pitches in the outer third on a total of 26 ABs ending on an outside pitch. Since he's crushing inside pitches at the moment, if he can regain his approach at the plate (easier said than done) we could see him start to rebound to the seasons we saw him repeat the last two seasons.
Luis Severino, New York Yankees - The Rangers beat up on Severino Tuesday scoring six runs in just three innings handing him his third loss already this season. While he's been plagued by a .417 BABIP currently, Severino also isn't striking out anywhere near the amount of batters a guy with his stuff should. Part of that is he isn't getting the swing and misses on pitches out of the zone as last year, primarily on his changeup. His O-contact rate has jumped from 59.6% in 2015 to 71.1% this season and his hard hit rate has jumped by around 10%. His FIP is still down in the mid threes (ERA at 6.86) so there is definitely still hope for him. Not time to bail yet.
Jose Berrios, Minnesota Twins - A few days after the team sent down top prospect Byron Buxton, the team recalled their #2 prospect to the majors to start on Tuesday. Berrios is a consensus top 30 prospect in baseball, which also puts him in the top 10 range among all starting pitchers. He's been a strikeout machine in the minors punching out over a batter per inning at each stop along the way. With calling him up at the point in the season, he should stick around for the rest of the year in the bigs baring his own personal failings. The Twins rotation has been really bad this year and Ervin Santana is being placed on the DL as part of the roster moves to bring him up so there's absolutely a spot for him long term. Probably already owned in AL Only but mixed leagues should take a long look at him as well, he's on a similar level prospect wise with fantasy impact as Blake Snell.
R.A. Dickey, Toronto Blue Jays - Dickey dropped to 1-and-3 overall on the year after allowing six runs in six innings, pushing his season ERA up to 6.75 on the year. He was tagged for homers by Adam Eaton, Avisail Garcia, and Dioneer Navvaro. Dickey is relying more on his knuckleball this season than he ever has traditionally throwing his fastball about 16% of the time since becoming a "full-time knuckleballer" with the Mets. Right now, he's throwing it around 5% of the time and that fastball is rated as over two runs below average based on Fangraphs' pitch values. It's hard to trust a knuckler, especially one who is solely throwing knuckleballs at the moment.
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