Josh Hamilton went 0-8 and added little hope he’ll rebound. He has a current slash line of .202/.246/.298 for the year and is surely to rebound, right? Odds are we all know about his hot start to begin the year, but his massive slump, which began in June, may have gone unnoticed. Check out his slash from June 2012 to now: .236/.306/.446 with 24 home runs, 4 steals, 74 runs and 80 RBI. Listening to any Angels broadcast it’s obvious as to why he’s struggling; he cannot layoff pitches, especially breaking balls, outside the zone on the outer half. Hamilton is currently seeing the fifth least amount of fastballs in the league. During the same time period as I mentioned earlier (June to now) he has a slash line of .280/.367/.510 against fastballs. With Peter Bourjos on the DL I would move Mike Trout to the leadoff spot and I would bat Hamilton second to try to get him to see more fastballs and better pitches. Will Hamilton rebound? The smart money says yes, but a .260 batting average may be his ceiling.
Jose Fernandez was in and out of trouble throughout the entire game, but the biggest takeaway from the game were two things. First, his changeup looked really good in bursts and was able to strikeout three of the four batters on the changeup. Second, he only threw four innings and 81 pitches. In his last three starts he’s thrown 81, 79 and 79 pitches. It looks as though he may be on a strict pitch count, which will limit his ability to pitch deep enough to earn wins.
Julio Teheran was aided by superb defense and BABIP luck as he allowed ten hits, one walk and two earned runs in 5.1 innings. Even though he allowed ten hits, it could’ve been more as a lot of the contact he allowed found barrels and were squared up. The raw stuff is still there, but he shouldn’t be starting for your fantasy team except for an NL-only.
Matt Harvey had his “worst” game of the year going 5.1 innings with seven strikeouts, seven hits, two walks and one earned runs. Harvey essentially scrapped the curveball, only throwing it 6.6 percent of the time; usually it’s about 12 percent. His fastball command was clearly lacking as he threw a lot of them over the middle of the plate a lot, especially to left handed batters, and found a lot of barrels. If he faced a quality lineup he would have fared much worse. Another major thing I noticed was how much he was sweating as the game went on and it made look uncomfortable. By the fifth inning he completely sweat through his jersey. Maybe this contributed to his lack command?
