Elly De La Cruz has been called up to Cincinnati and is quite possibly the highest level prospect we're going to see debut this season. He went 1-for-3 in his debut with a double and two walks while hitting cleanup. De La Cruz brings an insane combo of power/speed to the table, but does struggle at times with strikeouts. For the season he has a 26% strikeout rate, which is actually a step up from last season. Since May 1st though he's posting a 22.4% strikeout rate, with 32 strikeouts against 24 walks and five of those strikeouts came on the first day of June. He's likely going to play some third base and shortstop for the team, and he's an immediate add in leagues as they don't make this move if they aren't open to him spending the rest of the year in the majors.
Alek Manoah was sent to the Florida Complex League on Tuesday. To say his 2023 has been awful is really putting it kindly. He's posted a 6.36 ERA over 58 innings, struck out a career-low 17% of batters and has a walk rate just shy of 15%. His first two years in the league where such a great example of limiting hard-contact, 31%, and this season it's shot up to 43%. Considering the team sent him all the way to complex league ball makes me think it's going to be a minute until we see him again, and that the team is going to give him the space he needs to build back from the ground up. If it was something that was just a mechanical issue I would assume that a AAA would be the way to go, but this seems like it is much more than that. He's obviously a safe drop at this point just in case you were holding on hope for a rebound.
Probably the strangest stat line of the evening, Mitch Keller had possibly his worst start of the season against the worst team in baseball. Keller allowed five runs over five innings against Oakland, struck out just one batter, walked four, and allowed 10+ balls to be batted at over 95 MPH. He gave up eight hits in total and this was the first time he struck out under eight batters since April 21st against the Reds, seven starts ago. Keller has now given up four or more runs in each of his last three starts and has seven walks over those 17.1 innings. The big issue Tuesday just came down to an overall lack of swing and miss combined with inability to hit the zone. He generated just three whiffs on 42 swings, and none came on the fastball or sweeper, and also recorded just a 20% CSW so called strikes weren't happening for him either. Overall though it's just a blip on the radar, it just feels worse to see these kind of games happened in spots where he should dominate.
Kevin Gausman continues to assert himself towards the top of the AL Cy Young race with another gem Tuesday, striking out 13 batters over seven innings against the Astros. Gausman allowed a leadoff homer to start the game, then dominated the rest of the way allowing just four total hits and no walks. He recorded an insane 36% whiff rate in the game including swings and misses on 57% of the splitters that where swung at. His splitter was already one of the best pitches in baseball last season, and it's been even better in 2023 with an slightly bumped whiff rate, lower xBA, and batters are slugging just .207 against it. I'm not saying it's a perfect pitch but it's certainly in the running at this point.
Clarke Schmidt had a very unique outing against the White Sox, earning a quality start with three runs over six innings but struck out just one batter. He allowed six hits in the game, but two of those left the yard. Schmidt had been on a bit of a run with strikeouts, getting five or more in five of his last six starts, but this game the White Sox weren't missing the sweeper as he generated zero whiffs on it when it normally runs around a 30% rate. Schmidt was able to pound the zone though to generate a 30% CSW despite just a 15% whiff rate across the board. It's nice to see him survive a game where he didn't have his best stuff and not get completely smoked by a solid offense.
Jordan Walker rejoined the Cardinals at the beginning of the month, and Tuesday we saw him hit his third homer of the season. Dating back to his first stint in the majors, he's striking out at a perfectly reasonable 22% and making great contact but he's hitting everything into the ground with a 55% groundball rate. If he can start to lift the ball more there's a really good chance that his numbers absolutely take off and now that he's back up he should have a chance to stick around.
