The Braves dropped 12 runs on the Mets last night, and they have now scored 90 runs in their past 11 games, 10 of which they won. They have reached double digits nine times this season, five times this month and seven times in the 31 games since Austin Riley was joined up. They rank ninth in wRC+ against both left and right-handed pitching and eighth overall. They’re particularly dangerous at home with the fourth best wRC+ in home games. They’ll have a tough time scoring as much as they have been lately against Jacob deGrom tonight, but they get Steven Matz and his 1.70 HR/9 on Wednesday.

Pitching Performance of the Day

Both José Berríos and Masahiro Tanaka struck out 10 batters and generated 21 swinging strikes last night, but Berrios allowed a run and only went eight innings. That sounds pretty good, but it wasn’t as good as Tanaka who went the distance and did not allow a run. In addition to tossing a shutout, Tanaka only allowed three baserunners. Tanaka has a 0.41 ERA against the Rays this season as he has allowed only one run to them in 22 innings. That’s obviously impressive but more so when you consider the fact that the Rays rank seventh in wRC+ against right-handed pitching this season. Since the calendar turned to May, Tanaka has a 3.00 ERA and 3.46 FIP with a sub-four-percent walk rate and has been three strikeouts short of a strikeout per inning.

 

 

Hitting Performance of the Day

While I’d love to give the nod to Matt Carpenter , who was a triple short of the cycle and someone I recommended for DFS in yesterday’s Hitting Coach, Cavan Biggio has to be the pick here. Biggio was the only player to homer twice yesterday, and he walked in his other two plate appearances. That gives him five home runs in his first 74 PA, good for a .283 ISO when paired with a couple of doubles. The walks bring him to 10, which brings his walk rate to 18.9-percent. With a 28.4-percent strikeout rate, Biggio has been very much the modern baseball player since his debut with a three true outcome percentage of 54-percent. Altogether it’s resulted in a healthy 140 wRC+ for the impressive rookie.

 

 

Game of the Day

In this weird world of opening pitchers, Tommy Milone entered Monday’s game against the Royals in the first inning with two outs and two on. He gave up a hit, which extended Kansas City’s lead over Seattle to 2-0, and then gave up only two more hits and one more run over the next six innings. When he was done after the seventh, the M’s held a 4-3 lead primarily thanks to a Tom Murphy three-run home run.

The Royals took the lead back the next inning when Jorge Soler hit a two-run home run off Anthony Bass , and they extended the lead with a Martín Maldonado solo home run in the top of the ninth. Seattle got their win expectancy back up over 30 percent in the bottom of the ninth when their first two runners reached base, but Ian Kennedy shut the door striking out the next two and getting Tim Beckham to foul out to end the game. Raise your hand if you knew Ian Kennedy had eight saves this season. Anyway, here’s the game graph courtesy of Fangraphs.

What to Watch for Today

It’s a big day for injured superstars returning from injury. Both the NL and AL MVPs from 2017 have been on the IL but are expected to return to their teams today. Jose Altuve has been out since May 10, and Giancarlo Stanton only played three games in April before hitting the IL. Stanton has a borderline hilarious batting line in his only three games this season. He went only 2-for-15 before getting injured, but he has a 180 wRC+ thanks to seven walks in those 15 PA, which gives him a .600 OBP on the season.