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NL Notes: Cueto, Leake, Nats, Bucs, Phillies

By Connor Byrne | May 29, 2016 at 2:01pm CDT

Despite signing a six-year, $130MM deal with the Giants in the offseason, right-hander Johnny Cueto’s excellence in San Francisco has somehow flown under the radar, writes Sarah Langs of ESPN.com. Not only has Cueto pitched to a 2.38 ERA across 75 2/3 innings this year, but he has done it while giving the Giants length, as Langs writes. Cueto is tied for the league lead with superstars Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale in complete games (three), and he’s second to Kershaw in seven-inning starts (nine). His changeup has been particularly dominant, as Cueto has induced swings and misses a career-best 44 percent of the time with it. Batters have hit a paltry .175 against the pitch and Cueto has fanned 29 hitters while deploying it with two strikes, which ranks behind only Stephen Strasburg. When batters have put Cueto’s changeup in play, they’ve hit it on the ground 74 percent of the time.

More from the National League:

  • Righty Mike Leake potentially could have signed with the Nationals before inking a five-year, $75MM deal with the Cardinals over the winter, but he told Bill Ladson of MLB.com that the timing wasn’t right. Leake, an Arizona native, was hoping to join the Diamondbacks when the Nats pursued him. “The Nationals came into the process during that time. It was almost bad timing. I was still feeling something out. I respected that the Nationals came early and tried to get me early. It just didn’t seem right at the time,” said Leake, who considers Nationals manager Dusty Baker a “big-time mentor” thanks to their time together in Cincinnati from 2010-13.
  • Pirates skipper Clint Hurdle didn’t shoot down the idea of moving right-hander Juan Nicasio to the bullpen when asked about it Sunday, tweets Travis Sawchik of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Nicasio, who has 77 big league innings in relief under his belt, will continue in the rotation for now. However, with the Super Two cutoff nearing, it stands to reason his spot could soon be in jeopardy if the Bucs go the expected route and promote top prospects Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon. Nicasio put himself in danger of a demotion by following a solid April with four mediocre to poor May starts. The 29-year-old allowed 15 earned runs on 28 hits in 20 May innings, though he did pick up 18 strikeouts against six walks. All told, Nicasio owns a 4.79 ERA, 9.00 K/9 and 3.45 BB/9 through 47 frames.
  • Phillies manager Pete Mackanin has “been conscious of” the team’s offensive shortcomings all season, he said after their 4-1 loss to the Cubs on Saturday (via Cody Stavenhagen of MLB.com). “You look at the Cubs, the Tigers, they’ve got the home run. They’ve got power. They have threats to do damage. We haven’t been able to do that,” he stated. Only the Braves have hit fewer home runs than the Phillies, whose team ISO is also second from the bottom (again, only Atlanta’s is worse). The Phillies are also 29th in runs scored (take a wild guess who’s last), but Mackanin is nonetheless confident they can continue staying in games because of their pitching. Thanks to their rotation and late-game relievers like Jeanmar Gomez, Hector Neris and David Hernandez, the Phillies are a respectable 26-23 and have gone a terrific 14-4 in one-run games. Having such resounding success in close affairs will only become more difficult without improved offensive production, however.
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Philadelphia Phillies Pittsburgh Pirates San Francisco Giants Washington Nationals Johnny Cueto Juan Nicasio Mike Leake

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View Comments (18)
Post a Comment

18 Comments

  1. sdsuphilip

    9 years ago

    Would expect Pirates to go to Taillon before Glasnow.

    And far from surprising Cueto’s deal looks like a big bargain, people had way too much recency bias when discussing him in the offseason.

    Reply
    • baseballfan 3

      9 years ago

      Agreed. Taillon is ready now. Super 2 is the only thing holding him back. Glasnow still needs to work on his changeup.

      Don’t sleep on Kuhl and his miniscule era. Williams and Brault could help too. They have a dynamite AAA rotation.

      Reply
      • theo2016

        9 years ago

        Braults the only one with upside out of that second group you mentioned. None of them have an out pitch. You can succeed in the minors without one but in the majors you need one once they have seen enough of you. Brault has a nice change though.

        Reply
        • jimmyz

          9 years ago

          Kuhl’s slider is much better this year and he’s starting to use it as an out pitch which has greatly helped him as he can get guys out with two strikes as opposed to always relying on trying to get a grounder with his sinker. I expect Kuhl and Taillon come up in June with Glasnow coming up after the all star break sometime.

          Reply
  2. bravesfan 7

    9 years ago

    The Rockies?

    Reply
    • Logan10braves

      9 years ago

      No, it’s the Red Sox you idiot. (I’m kidding. I know it hurts.)

      Reply
  3. Brixton

    9 years ago

    Send out/DFA:
    Ryan Howard
    Manny Burriss
    Elvis Araujo
    Adam Morgan

    Call up:
    Cam Perkins (.307 BA, .841 OPS, 4 HR, 16 RBI at AAA)
    Taylor Featherston (.285 BA, .789 OPS, 5 HR, 13 RBI at AAA)
    Zach Eflin (7-0, 2.81 ERA at AAA)
    Mario Hollands (1.69 ERA on rehab assignment)

    Hope they can help the team someway better than the other 4, and wait for Williams, Crawford, Knapp, Thompson and Alfaro to come up.

    Reply
    • Jorge Soler Powered

      9 years ago

      None of those call-ups would do much better than the guys you suggest they replace. The Phillies have been playing way over their talent so far. They are about to get swept by a real team, and haven’t even put up a fight.

      Reply
      • jleve618

        9 years ago

        They look almost as bad as the cubs in the nlcs last year.

        Reply
        • statlr

          9 years ago

          Which means what, aside from your level of snarkiness. Do you mean to imply that the Phillies are a really great team as the Cubs were and are just running into a hot team on a buzz saw, or that the Cubs were a really crappy team playing a million miles over the head for 4 months and showed how bad they were when a mediocre team (as the Cubs apparently are) sweeps them aside like a worn out chew toy?

          Reply
        • halos101

          9 years ago

          Rip jleve618

          Reply
  4. A'sfaninUK

    9 years ago

    In Johnny Cueto’s 8 QS (out of 10 GS) this year, 3 were against SD, 2 against Arizona, 1 against Colorado, Milwakuee and the Dodgers (who roughed him up in his other start).

    No one is noticing him because he has played pretty much all bad teams and the Dodgers. What a dumb article to read.

    Reply
    • Brixton

      9 years ago

      Arizona and Colorado are both excellent offensive teams. 4th and 5th in team BA, 5th and 6th in runs scores, 5th and 6th in OPS. Milwakuee is middle of the pack as well.

      Reply
      • theo2016

        9 years ago

        The 3 San Diego is pretty huge tho. But he is in the n.l. west and all those teams get to gave them a lot.

        Reply
        • Brixton

          9 years ago

          You can’t discredit a guy for beating up on the bad teams. He has a 3.51 ERA against everyone else,

          Reply
    • McGlynn

      9 years ago

      What a dumb comment to read. Just because a team is bad doesn’t mean their offense isn’t. 6/9 of his quality starts have been against decent offensive teams, and in the 2/3 that have been against SD, he went CG Shutout, which is impressive no matter what mlb team is out there.

      Reply
  5. Selkies

    9 years ago

    Say whatever you want about Philly’s talent level right now but when they get the kids off the farm, look out.

    Reply
  6. philliesrule

    9 years ago

    70 wins for phillies?

    Reply

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