Bobby Miller made his major league debut Tuesday and performed well in a matchup that certainly was not a favorable one on paper. He allowed just one run over five innings while striking out five batters. He With just four hits allowed and one walk, he did a fantastic job at keeping the Braves off the bases, with an offense that has been rolling this month. His 21% CSW left a lot to be desired, and with that number it's pretty impressive that he earned a strikeout per inning. Miller's starts in the minors were rough with an ERA close to 6.00, but he was striking out over a batter per inning and if he gets to make extra starts in the majors he can certainly be an above-average source for that.
Spencer Strider did Spencer Strider things, allowing two earned runs (four total) with five hits allowed and three walks. He did however punch out 11 batters, giving him 10+ in three of his last four starts. For the year now Strider is up to 97 strikeouts in just 57.2 innings. He's giving up runs at a higher rate than we're used to seeing him. After three shutout starts in the first month of the season, in May he's allowed at least one run in every start including two in four of the five starts. But in a league where almost all of the top aces in the league have had some clunkers, there's only been one "bad" start on his resume this year. He's followed up last season with a just as strong sophomore campaign for the Braves.
Byron Buxton went 2-for-4 at the plate with a homer, his 10th of the year. Buxton's numbers this year are kind of what we've come to expect from him with strong power numbers (.497 slug) but a rough batting average. Two interesting developments have come from Buxton this year, one being something that we haven't seen in a few years and something else that's brand new. Buxton always has had top of the line speed, but it's mostly been used for the outfield rather than the basepaths. This year though he's already swiped five bases this yea and has a shot to post his highest total since 2019 when he stole 19. Something we've never seen from him though is he's walking at nearly a 14% rate. The highest total he's had in his career was last season at 8.9%, and his career walk rate 7.0%. The two major improvements/surprises are clearly connected to each other and it's helping boost his fantasy value in a big way.
Taj Bradley had a mixed bag of results with nine hits and four earned runs over four innings, but also struck out seven without a single walk. This was a good bounceback for him in terms of strikeouts, after he record 23 across his first three starts he fanned only two against the Mets. He posted an amazing 32% whiff rate and a 35% CSW, but the Jays were just ready to hit and put up 20 runs on the Rays. I'm still very high on Bradley going forward and this start doesn't do anything to push me off of him, but in fact might have me even more excited with the swing and miss numbers for him this week.
Nathan Eovaldi allowed one run against Pittsburgh while throwing a complete game. He walked one, allowed six hits and struck out five batters. He did a fantastic job of getting through this despite allowing an insane amount of hard contact. He only had nine swing and misses in the game, for a 17% whiff rate but managed to pull together a 25% CSW due to pounding the zone. This outing shaved his ERA to 2.60 and he's sitting at an impressive 6-2 record. This was really the first start that he's gotten hit extremely hard as his batted-ball data to this point in the season has been really impressive considering how his stats have looked in prior seasons.
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