MLB schedule today has 6 games
We were supposed to have 10 games on Thursday, but Mother Nature had other ideas, as four of the day’s games were postponed before Wednesday even wrapped up. With bad-weather days built in for Friday in Baltimore, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Queens, officials wasted no time in moving Thursday’s games to Friday. Bummer for those that took the day off of work, but at least the forecasts look more promising by waiting a day.
That leaves us with six games and only two of them are late. I’ll get to those in a second, but first, some notes on Wednesday. (Tracking sheet)
We had a bunch of aces on the bump and only saw 22 homers hit across 12 games. Collectively, batters hit just .224 and had a 23.3% K% with a 9.5% BB%. Base stealers were only 23-of-32 as well, which I believe goes down as the worst day of the season.
I talked on the podcast and in the article about the big offensive days on Monday and Tuesday with back-end starters on the mound. I think it’s also worth pointing out that it seems like teams are maybe less aggressive with fewer baserunners against ace pitchers. As things get jumbled up in the rotation with off days and postponements, it’ll be interesting to see how run scoring plays out, but right now, it looks like we’re dealing with a different game when the aces come out to play against each other and when the fringy starters are head-to-head.
I’m sure that’s true of most seasons, but it does feel magnified with the impacts of the shift ban and pitch clock on lesser-quality arms. Like I said on Wednesday’s pod, we may have to lay some hefty numbers on aces against average or below average arms as the season goes along.
I’ll have the latest edition of VSiN Daily Baseball Bets up shortly.
Here are some thoughts on the April 6 card (odds from DraftKings):
Washington Nationals at Colorado Rockies (-150, 11)
Our first Coors Field game in a post-shift world features Josiah Gray and Kyle Freeland, as the Rockies head home in a big favorite role against the hapless Nats. Colorado actually got bet up on Thursday evening as bettors started to tap into the overnight lines. I can’t really argue with that, however, I have real serious concerns about Freeland in this park and in virtually any start.
He threw six shutout innings against the Padres in his 2023 debut, but only had one strikeout out of 21 batters. His velocity was below 90 mph and only had two whiffs on 33 swings. He threw a ton of sliders, but the pitch did have a noticeable spin rate decrease from last season. He did a decent job of limiting hard contact with only six hard-hit balls, but got pretty fortunate on the loud contact he did allow. The Padres went 0-for-6 on the hard-hit balls they had, managing a double on a 94.8 mph ball that had a xBA of just .010.
Freeland allowed 19 balls in play and 10 were fly balls, which is a huge change for him. The increased slider usage may have been part of that, but usually sliders generate more ground balls because of the sweeping, downward action that forces guys to hit the top of the ball. It was a really weird start, to be honest, and one that didn’t really inspire a lot of confidence coming out of the WBC or with the rule changes.
Gray’s start was quite bad on Opening Day, but a lot of pitchers will have bad starts against the Braves. He allowed five runs on seven hits, including three home runs. There were some really interesting arsenal changes for Gray. After throwing 39.2% four-seam fastballs with awful results last season (.305 BA, .742 SLG, 24 HR), he only threw 16.1% fastballs against the Braves. Instead, he opted to attack with curveballs, sliders and cutters, which was really surprising. He only threw one pitch classified as a cutter last season.
Gray’s spin rates were down relative to last season and his ugly command profile probably won’t do him any favors at Coors Field, where spin is decreased because of the lack of resistance against the ball. It’s one of many scientific reasons why offense spikes in Denver. Pitches just don’t move as much. For a guy like Gray, who allowed 38 HR last season in 148.2 innings and just allowed three in his first start while tinkering with a brand new arsenal, I’m not excited for him here.