Corbin Burnes, Milwaukee Brewers - Corbin Burnes picked up his first win of the year in a dominating outing against the Pirates that saw him throw seven innings with 10 strikeouts. Burnes got roughed up a bit in his first start of the year against the Cubs but since has been dominant with just two runs over his last 14 innings with 18 strikeouts. After walking three in his first start of the year as well he's now just walked one batter over his last two starts and didn't have a single walked against Pittsburgh. If for whatever reason you had the slightest worry after one start and then wrote off a Baltimore start as being Baltimore, let this start curb your stress with 10 punchouts against a team that doesn't strike out at a super-high rate.
Wander Franco, Tampa Bay Rays - Wander Franco hit his first homer of the season on Tuesday in a 3-for-5 effort at the plate. This was Franco's first game back in the lineup after he was held out of the lineup with some quad tightness. Franco's off to an unbelievable start this season with a .404/.408/.638 slash line and seven RBI to go along with the homer and a lone stolen base. Franco isn't walking at all (1 BB in 49 PA) but he's recording an 8.2% strikeout rate to pair with a 33% hard-hit rate. He's a true 80-grade hitter like the scouting reports said and wherever you drafted him this spring appears to have not been a reach. He's a star already.
Jo Adell, Los Angeles Angels - The beauty of small samples is the work that can be done to a stat line with just one game. Adell went 3-5 at the plate Tuesday and saw his season average jump from .176 to .231. The three hits is great, but he's still striking out at way too high a rate and his two strikeouts on Tuesday somehow lowered his K% for the year to 47.5%. He's posting solid power numbers with a .231 ISO and five of his nine hits going for extra bases, but nothing is going to come to fruition with the swing and miss being this prevalent. I guess the silver lining here is that his chase rate is right in the middle of the pack, so it could be that he's swinging and missing at everything in the zone AND chasing everything outside of the zone. But really it's getting the swing and miss in the zone down a chunk.
Chris Archer, Minnesota Twins - While he doesn't have a decision on record yet this year, Chris Archer might have found a little something in Minnesota with his second straight solid outing for the Twins. Archer allowed two runs over 4.1 innings with five strikeouts but did walk three batters and allow four hits. Archer's first start of the year resulted in four shutout innings against the Dodgers and now he strikes out five batters against one of the toughest teams to strike out in baseball. Archer resorted to only his fastball and slider in this start after sprinkling in some curves against LA, and his slider posted a 36% whiff rate with eight whiffs on 22 swings. His fastball though was extremely hittable generating just two whiffs and three called strikes (17% CSW). It really feels like he's a one-trick pony at this point, which pains me to say after prime-Archer in Tampa is/was one of my favorite pitchers to watch. I'm not rushing out to add him anywhere but could look his way to stream/DFS in the right matchups.
Josiah Gray, Washington Nationals - Josiah Gray struck out eight batters over 5.1 innings against Arizona on Tuesday. Gray's curveball was OUTSTANDING on Tuesday with a 75% whiff rate on eight swings and his usage on the pitch skyrocketed to 37% after sitting at just 23% through his first two starts. For the year now he's already notched two wins, which is impressive considering the Nationals should be in contention for one of the top picks in the draft. This marks two straight strong outings for Gray as he even may have improved a bit over five shutout innings against Atlanta last time out. Seeing just three batted balls register as "hard-hit" is excellent as well because as he's been generating whiffs and strikeouts all year, he has been getting tagged hard on balls put in play.
