Early in the morning I tweeted Nate Eovaldi would be a sneaky option in daily fantasy sports (DFS) because he’s never had a problem getting righties out (via the strikeout and ground balls) and the Tigers lineup was mostly right-handed hitters. True to my word I started Eovaldi in my double up contest and needless to say I was extremely happy with my pick.
Last night Eovaldi had trouble throwing the fastball down in the zone most of the night, which is why he allowed so many hits. Even though he allowed some base hits he still got out of jams via the double play (four to be exact), which wasn’t a big surprise to me considering righties had a 50 percent ground ball rate against him last year. Random tangent, Stephen Drew looked pretty good defensively at shortstop; he’s not going to win a gold glove, but he’s good enough to hold his own.
Other than the occasional curveball Eovaldi was basically a two-pitch pitcher (fastball and slider), which doesn’t bode well for him moving forward. Since he faced a righty heavy lineup he was able to get away it. If he’s going to have sustained success as a starting pitcher the split-changeup has to come around. The fact he didn’t throw any last night makes me believe he doesn’t have faith in that pitch yet. Moving forward I would only use him against right handed heavy lineups.
Other Notes
If I own Mark Melancon I would be very worried. Not only did he blow a two run lead, the velocity on the fastball and cutter or both 3-4 mph slower compared to last year. It’s possible he’s hurt because a velocity dip that much doesn’t happen randomly. If I owned Melancon I would pick up Tony Watson right now to protect my Pirates saves.
Taijuan Walker’s box score looks good, but the issues I wrote about before are still there. He would’ve allowed more runs, but he got a little lucky. Twice in the game the bases were loaded with two outs with Jose Altuve up and the Astros scored zero runs.
Evan Gattis has obviously struggled this season, but the question is will he rebound and when will it happen? I’ve seen a good number of his at-bats and the biggest thing I’ve noticed is the front side is flys open early against breaking balls, which results to a lot of swings and misses. Against non-fastballs his swing and miss rate is 55 percent; last year it was only 35 percent. If I can see a problem the Astros have to be aware of it so it’s only a matter of time Gattis rebounds.
Carlos Rodon made his Major League debut and I wasn’t impressed. He obviously has good stuff, but it doesn’t matter if he can’t throw strikes with it. He came into the game with runners on second and third and two outs with Brandon Moss at the plate. Rodon walks him on four straight pitches. Ryan Raburn comes up and he continues to not throw strikes; at this point he was unable to throw his slider for strikes, which allowed Raburn to sit fastball. Raburn eventually hit a double down the left field line, scoring two runs. In the next inning he allowed two more runs to score and in the following inning he almost allowed a home run to Raburn (another 1-3 inches further and it would’ve been a home run). My overall impression was he should still be in the minors working on his command, but it’s only outing so it’s hard to gleam anything significant. I also question if he’s going to have a third pitch. I only saw 1-2 changeups and they were bad. If the changeup doesn’t come around he’s a two-pitch pitcher, which means he’s going to need much better command of the fastball if he’s going to be a successful starting pitcher. It’s going to be awhile before he starts a game for the White Sox.
