We've been scrutinizing Danny Salazar since his return from the minors and after two dominating performances, he had his best start yet going 7.0 IP, 1 ER, 4 Hits, 3 BBs, 12 Ks against the Yankees. As all of them are, Eno Saris wrote a great article about Salazar's return to the bigs, considering that Salazar's decision to throw more Four-Seamers and dial back the Changeup a little bit is helping him get through games. Well he certainly continued dominating in this one, so I went into the heatmaps to see if it was consistent with what Eno was discussing, and yeah, Four-Seamers were up-and-armside, Changeups were low or out of the zone and Sliders danced in and out. Much different location that the Four-Seamers he threw earlier in the year. Alright, here's my thinking. This is clearly Salazar's ceiling, no question about it. It's also three starts of it, but it's a beautiful place he's in. I can be convinced that it details a solid 8 weeks ahead for him, but I can also be convinced that it's a small sample size and Salazar isn't so far removed from being a ratio destroyer. At the end of the day, it is a shift in approach and y'all know I treat that like the biggest indicator of believing success. Come Monday, I'll probably have Salazar around 30 or so, as his upside is clearly as high as they come. I don't imagine he hints at Top 15, though.
Let’s see how every other SP did yesterday:
EJ looked really good yday.
Managed to trade Ervin Santana for Castillo yesterday — pretty happy with that!
I was watching the Castillo start. He had trouble with location early on, then adjusted very nicely … and then Bryan Price attempted a bit of Careful, Icarus, sending him out for the seventh with 93 pitches. And then left him in after hitting a man with his 111th pitch.
Going to see how Matz does tonight, but if he gets blowed up, OK to drop for Reynaldo Lopez? Have Castillo & JorMont, too… Thanks, love the site!
I’m cool with that!