Justin Smoak, Toronto Blue Jays - Justin Smoak continued his strong second half start with another homer on Saturday, his 27th of the of the season. Since the All Star Break Smoak is triple slashing .379/.514/.759 with four homers and he's also in the midst of a seven game hit streak. He's been smoking the ball (shows self the door) with a career high hard hit rate while matching his FB% from last season but there's an argument that he's been a bit unlucky in terms of homers as he currently owns a 23.6% HR/FB rate. Last season it was 17.7% and his career average is even lower at 14.9%. Weirdly enough his two highest percentages of HR/FB were with the Blue Jays despite playing in a very homer friendly division and his lower totals were with the Mariners in a pitcher friendly division. Smoak has been unbelievable at the plate this season and most of the success can be attributed to his strikeout rate has dropped by 13% this season.
Clint Frazier, New York Yankees - Clint Frazier went 2-for-4 Saturday with a double, continuing his hot stretch after struggling a bit out of the gate. Since 7/7 Frazier is hitting .342 with a 161 wRC+, hitting two homers and driving in eight but has only walked once since being in the majors and he's currently posting a 25% strikeout rate. It has been reported now that it appears he'll be sent down to AAA once Aaron Hicks is able to return from the DL with his oblique injury. Luckily based on three minutes of research on Twitter it looks like Hicks is still 2-to-3 week from returning to action. Frazier isn't without warts, but for a player who has had 10 of his 17 hits go for extra bases it's at least enough to keep me interested while he has playing time in the majors.
Danny Salazar, Cleveland Indians - Danny Salazar dominated in his long await return to the majors and dominated the Indians over seven innings allowing just one hit and struck out eight. The start was Salazar's first since May 27th and his first appearance in the bigs since being demoted to the bullpen after that start and making two appearances out of the bullpen. Salazar was touching 95 throughout the game so the stuff was clearly there and the major jump for him in this game was that he was able to keep extra runners off base with no walks. His BB/9 entering this game was 4.5 and that's been the largest issue by far this season. He was still striking batters out at a ridiculous rate (12.34 per nine)even when he wasn't pitching well and it looks like he's been able to keep that rolling in his return.
Francisco Lindor, Cleveland Indians - Francisco Lindor launched his 15th homer of the season in a walkoff shot to beat the Blue Jays Saturday. Lindor's power numbers have been terrific this season as he's already tied his career high for homers in 60 fewer games but he's also hitting 50 points worse and has just four stolen bases after falling just one shy of 20 last year. A big part of the batting average dip is his .267 BABIP but he's become one of the fly ball specialists that baseball is seeing itself have, so even though he's hitting the ball far harder than any other year the fly ball approach will keep the average down. He's hitting .275 so far in July so we may be seeing him switch his approach a bit which should help with the overall batting line.
Alex Bregman, Houston Astros - Alex Bregman got his second straight start at SS Saturday and hit his 9th homer of the season. The homer was the first for Bregman in almost a month to the day, but even though he's not hitting for power in that stretch he's still slashing .297/.388/.446 with an equal 12.9% BB% and K%, all combining for a 125 wRC+. While his stat line isn't crazy impressive overall when comparing him to other third baseman, this kind of production can play at SS. He's going to eventually get SS eligibility with Carlos Correa being out so check you league rules and you could scoop him up a few days out from when he grabs it and there could be less competition for him.
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