Dustin May left his start on Thursday after just one inning, but the Dodgers received good news today. There’s no fracture in May’s foot, as was feared, but a contusion still garners a day-to-day status and an eventual IL stint is not out of the question, per Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register (via Twitter). There may be some smoke and mirrors behind May’s 2.81 ERA, as a 4.51 FIP suggests the underlying work hasn’t been as strong as the ERA. At a surface level, May’s strikeouts have been down to 6.0 K/9 while a 2.2 BB/9 mark represents a slight year-over-year increase. Let’s get another couple injury updates from around the game…
- The Oakland A’s face a reality without star third baseman Matt Chapman in the lineup for the rest of the season. The good news for Oakland is they’ve built a 7-game lead over the Astros for the division, and with less than a third of the season remaining, they have 99.6% likelihood of winning the West, per Fangraph’s playoff odds. They’ll get a little more help with Stephen Piscotty expected to return to the lineup today, per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). The 29-year-old outfielder carries a .264/.308/.438 line through 131 plate appearances, 4% better than average so far this season with the stick. Piscotty was given the last two days off, but he will be in the lineup for the second game of today’s doubleheader.
- Sean Doolittle hasn’t been his dominant self the last year or so, though he’s largely remained a productive arm for the Nats. Luckily for Washington, Doolittle’s up-and-down spells were on the upswing during last year’s playoffs, where he and Daniel Hudson did most of the heavy lifting for the bullpen. He’s on a downswing now, however, stuck with a 5.87 ERA while he hopes to recover from an oblique strain. Doolittle is likely done for the year, though if the Nats can rehash some 2019 magic and erase their five game deficit to make the playoffs, it’s possible Doolittle could return to participate, per Byron Kerr of MASNsports.com (via Twitter).
- Tanner Rainey has largely stepped into the high-leverage role vacated by Doolittle, but he’ll be taking a couple of days off due to forearm soreness, tweets Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. An MRI came back negative, so the Nats will give Rainey a couple days off and hope his discomfort dissipates.
Dustin May has a 4.51 FIP!? That is surprising.
That caught my eye too. I think I have an understanding of why
First, his Ks are low at 6.0/9. For the most part, he’s relying on weak contact to get outs instead of going deep into counts. Hence, the walk rate being in check
I think if he was trying to K 8-9 per 9 innings, his walks would be higher too. Instead, he’s trusting LA’s defense and their shifts (they shift more than any team in baseball), and letting the defense field his weak grounders off the big 2 seamer, instead of him trying to make it the perfect pitch and go for K every time.
Its a smart way to save his arm, if the player can execute. Orel H on the broadcasts basically says the catcher sets up middle middle and lets May action do the work. So he’s trying to be effective pitch wise instead the most dominate results. He is on a pitch limit, or has been, all year. So its a great strategy.
I think once he’s gets a little bigger weight wise, and has more of a built up arm. the Ks will come back a la last year, and the FIP will be more in line with his ERA, which is excellent (154 ERA+)
Just like Buehler’s blister, Id rather they take it slow with May than worry about the last 2 weeks of Sept. Its all about Oct.
Great analysis! Can’t wait to see May striking more guys
Buehler’s FIP is 4.77. I brought that up in the discussion about him and it caught nobody’s eye but mine. Funny how that works.
OK…once again…MLBTR assumes that everyone follows every single game and knows everything that happens. What happened to Dustin May’s foot? Sure I could look around the net to find the details that are left out but if I’m gonna do that…why come here at all?
May took a comebacker to the mound off his foot.
last start first inning, took hard grounder off his landing foot. Finished 1st but when he came out for 2nd warm ups, they pulled him. he tried to stay in. LAD said no way
Without Chapman, the A’s success in playoffs are in the toilet. Not really anyone in that lineup that’s scary.
Matt Olsen,Marcus simien ,the list goes on lol. May not be having years like they did in the past but October is whole new ballgame. Hell it wouldn’t even surprise me to see a guy like Kris Davis to go homer crazy in a series in October stranger things have happened. My mets dont believe are making it to October so I’m rooting for Oakland or white Sox in October.
Olson and Semien are have awful seasons though
That’s okay in October it only takes getting hot for a few weeks or games which both have in them