Welcome back to another PrizePicks MLB Wednesday!
We have games scattered throughout the entire day, but let’s focus on the evening window for some fun.
Steele has been extremely competitive at this number since the beginning of August. In fact, the Chicago ace has tallied at least six strikeouts in eight of those nine starts.
His season-long strikeout rate against right-handed hitters is 22.9%, but that number has increased to 26.7% across the last 30 days as the Cubs are in the thick of the National League playoff hunt.
The Pirates may roll out an entire lineup of nine right-handed batters against him, but I believe Steele will bring his A-game.
Since Aug. 1, the Pirates own the eighth-worst strikeout rate (24.7%) against left-handed pitchers in baseball.
That number has bumped up to 25.8% since the beginning of September. Sign me up.
Milwaukee owns a top-10 MLB strikeout rate against left-handed pitchers this month (19.2%) and is the third-best team in baseball since Aug. 1 at just 17.9%.
The Brewers were a complete mess against southpaws at the beginning of the season but have drastically turned it around by adding new personnel and simply getting healthier.
Thompson enjoyed some favorable matchups over the past two months or so as a starter, but this shouldn’t be one of them.
I’m not buying his recent success.
The Yankees are trying just about everything as they are out of the playoff picture this season.
One of their newer experiments is to stretch out Michael King to see if he’s capable of becoming a starting pitcher.
King has ramped up from 61 pitches four starts ago, to topping out at a respectable 87 six days ago against Boston.
King has been just as spectacular as a starter as he was coming out of the bullpen, allowing no more than one earned run in any of those four recent appearances.
His long-term battle will be efficiency and pitching deeper into games.
The matchup with Vlad should favor King, who has been throwing roughly 50% of sinkers to right-handed hitters across the last month.
That pitch to righties has produced a massive 42.9 CSW%.
This season, Guerrero has struggled to get right-handed sinkers off the ground with a 60.9% ground-ball rate against it and just a .130 ISO.
Another sinker-ball pitcher Adrian Houser takes the bump on Wednesday against the Cardinals. Houser has thrown nearly 60% of sinkers to right-handed hitters this season.
Overall, he’s punching out just 17.5% of righties – and that number has dropped to 14% across the last 30 days.
Edman might be the best contact matchup against Houser who is projected to be in the STL lineup, so both happy and surprised that PrizePicks has it on the board.
Since the beginning of 2022 (via RotoGrinders PlateIQ tool), Edman owns just a 5.8% strikeout rate against right-handed sinkers and a minuscule 6.9% whiff rate against that pitch overall (via baseballsavant).