Michael Harris II went 2-for-3 at the plate with a homerun Tuesday, his second of the season. 2022's Rookie of the Year has had a dreadful start to the season, slashing .174/.247/.304 across 77 at-bats. In terms of batted ball data he's still hitting the ball extremely hard, very consistently but his line drive rate last year that was a beautiful 22.4% has dropped all the was to just 12.9%, and most of that missing 10% has gone into pop-ups. He's not striking out anymore than he did last season which is good, and he's even walking more than last season which is also great, but it's just a quality of contact that he needs to find again. He's a solid buy low candidate now if someone is frustrated and ready to cut bait, as he's recently ditched his knee brace he was playing with and is back to near 100% from his hyperextension.
Kevin Gausman struck out eight over 5.1 innings against the Twins and earned the win, but it wasn't the prettiest of starts for him. He allowed just four hits and walked one, but walked five batters which is extremely unlike him and it cost him the quality start. He's surrendered a ton of hard-contact this season but did a fantastic job on Friday which helped limit the damage of all the extra baserunners. The five walks doubled his total for the entire month in one night, and the eight strikeouts give him eight or more in three of his last four starts. His strikeout numbers for the year are off the charts with 85 Ks in just 65 innings.
Bryce Harper went 0-for-3 at the plate, but the more info about his return to the field came out Tuesday as the team said he's not expected to take any time at first base until at least after the All-Star Break. Harper's been only used as the DH for the team but with the absence of Rhys Hoskins for the season, there's a clear void there for Harper to fill in. Alec Bohm has done solid job at first base with a .270 average, but just a .740 OPS. Bohm, even though he's a disaster on defense, would slide back to third and be a huge upgrade over Josh Harrison that is currently holding down the third base spot for Philly.
Jared Shuster had an alright start against the Phillies, making it the second straight start for him that hasn't been extremely bad. He allowed three runs over 5.2 innings, some of which came across after Joe Jimenez struggled in relief after Shuster was pulled. He struck out five batters, but walked three and skated by against a ton of hard contact only allowing three hits. It's been a rough go through five starts at the major league level with a 5.33 ERA and 20 strikeouts over 25.1 innings. His best start came against Seattle, who have been struggling on offense but he's allowed at least three earned runs in every start besides that one. He's waiver wire fodder until he can show any consistency at the major league level.
Hunter Greene spun an absolute gem against the Cubs, tossing six no-hit innings with a pair of walks and 11 strikeouts. Chicago couldn't do anything against him notching just two hard-hit balls, and he had a 31% whiff rate. This marks back-to-back outings where he's struck out 10 or more batters, but this was his first clean outing in the runs department for the month of May. Greene is a bit of hit or miss on a game to game basis but he's a wagon in terms of strikeouts even if he's prone to allowing runs at times (4.18 ERA) and is on a terrible team so wins are tough to come by, so it caps his ultimate upside for how high in a fantasy rotation that he can rise.
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