Bryce Miller dominated the A's over six innings, allowing just two hits and one run and he was perfect through his first five innings. He also casually set the record for the most strikeouts in a Mariners' debut with 10. His fastball in this outing was absolutely dominant with a 38% whiff rate and a 40% CSW, and he posted a 38% CSW as a whole in the start. He was essentially a two-pitch pitcher in the game, throwing his four-seam and cutter on 90% of his offerings, with the slider just sprinkled in. The slider didn't have a single swing and miss against it, but he did get three called strikes on it as it was still effective in spots. I am hoping Miller is up for multiple starts as he was electric in his debut and certainly deserves another shot.
Mason Miller tossed an odd gem on Tuesday, throwing seven no-hit innings with six strikeouts. The odd portion of it here is he was matched pitch for pitch by Bryce Miller, walked four and ultimately earned a no decision after the reliever immediately allowed homer in the 8th. This was Miller's best start of the season by far as he rebounded nicely from a tough start against the Angels where he allowed four runs in the first inning. He posted a 30% whiff rate (60% on the slider) but his CSW was down at just 23% dude to the lack of strikes. If he can harness his command a bit and keep up the whiffs there's a chance for him to skyrocket up the rest of season rankings.
Tim Anderson was activated off the IL on Tuesday and immediately dropped right back into his normal leadoff spot for the team. Anderson was hitting .286 at the time of his injury with no homers and five stolen bases. The big issue for Anderson so far is that he's not hitting for any sort of power so far with a 1.1 degree launch angle, and that's tying into his anemic .388 SLG. He's running nearly a 50% hard-hit rate which is great, but everything is right into the ground. He's not walking, par for the course for him, but the strikeout in a small sample is up to 20% again after it dipped to 15% last season. The batting average for him is nice but the lack of power is troubling and the White Sox as a whole have been terrible this season, so right now his upside at SS is capped in fantasy.
Michael Kopech allowed just one run over six innings with seven strikeouts, but really avoided danger despite just allowing one hit because of his five walks that he allowed. Kopech's walks continue to be an issue this year with at least two walks in each of his starts, and the ERA shows sitting at 6.28. He's allowed less than three runs just twice this season, and this was the first outing under three runs since April 9th against the Pirates. The strikeouts have been solid for him with 34 in 31.1 innings, but it's not quite enough to offset all of the runs that he's given up at this point. For me right now he's just a streaming option and I'm not confident enough to run him out there against just anyone.
Sandy Alcantara had a tough start on Tuesday against Atlanta. He took the loss and allowed three runs over five innings, allowing six hits and striking out five. He's not looking like his normal self this year with a 5.09 ERA across his first 35.1 innings. Strangely enough his whiff rate is actually up a couple ticks this year and his hard-hit rate is about what it was last season, but the highest end exit velos are up a bit from last year. If he's able to start getting some more groundballs back towards the 50-55% that he normally runs It looks like things could normalize. Batters are lifting the ball at the highest rate of his career, in terms of both line drives and fly balls and that's really where the damage is coming from with it.
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