Since the start of June, Adam Ottavino has been one of the best relievers in baseball with a 1.18 ERA and .82 WHIP despite having a K rate under 30%. The reason for his success has been the decrease in walks which plagued him the past few seasons. Now he’s back to trusting his stuff again and doing an amazing job of limiting hard contact (85 MPH average exit velo) while also getting groundballs over 50% of the time (highest GB rate for him since 2016).
Notes
- Pete Fairbanks has been lights out after missing the first half of the season, and has now gone 17 straight games without allowing a run while allowing just 7 hits and 2 walks over that span and striking out 26. He and Jason Adam appear to be sharing the closer role at the moment, with both seemingly interchangeable.
- Josh Hader was called on for another save opportunity last night, and converted while Nick Martinez worked the 8th inning. It looks like Hader’s stint outside of the closer role has come to an end, while Martinez figures to remain in a high leverage role, likely in that top set up spot.
- José Leclerc picked up another save on Tuesday, as he appears to be moving towards claiming the closer role in Texas. Matt Moore still figures to be a factor and despite Jonathan Hernández’s recent struggles, it may be too early to consider him out of the running.
- José Alvarado continued his strong second half this past week and has walked just three batters since August began (11.1 IP) while striking out 17. We’ve seen these spurts of greatness from Alvarado come and go, but with a tweak to his pitch repertoire (increased cutter usage) this new Alvarado could be here to last.
- Bryan Abreu has been an unsung hero for the Astros this season, and it’s nice to see him start adding holds as well lately with two of his five holds on the season coming this past week. Even if he isn’t racking up holds on a weekly basis, there is still value here similarly to Collin McHugh.
- I’m not sure if it has already happened yet, but Matt Bush should be one of the Brewers top two set up options the rest of the season, as Brad Boxberger has really struggled over the second half plus with a 1.875 WHIP since July. Bush has one of the best fastball/curveball combo’s in all of baseball, and has allowed just three earned runs over his past 12.2 IP with the Brewers to go along with a .71 WHIP and 18 K’s.
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