I had some trouble figuring out whether to start Zack Greinke in my Ottoneu league tonight. By the merits of his fantasy stats, it should be an easy call. Greinke is the 10th-ranked starting pitcher in the format, and while his strikeout rate (24.4 percent) is merely decent, he racks up enough innings to compensate for that. With a .309 team wOBA against righties, the Nationals don’t rank as a particularly fearsome matchup, but with Greinke qualifying as a fantasy ace, the Diamondbacks’ opponent probably doesn’t factor into many owners’ decisions.

Yet in a game where the frequency of swinging strikes is critical to a player’s value — whether it’s a pitcher or hitter — it’s hard to ignore Greinke’s downward-trending SwStr%. It fell from 12.4 percent in 2017 to 10.8 percent in 2018, and while he has rebounded from similar drops before, this year it stands at just 9.3 percent. Digging a little deeper, the increase in contact is happening mostly on his pitches outside of the strike zone. Greinke’s 84.7 percent Z-Contact% is 1.3 percentage points above last season’s mark and o.1 percentage point below the major league median. While that’s not especially encouraging, it’s Greinke’s 73.7 percent O-Contact% that is truly concerning. It’s far worse than the median O-Contact% of 62.2 percent and six points higher than his rate from 2018.
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Blake Treinen captured his 15th save of the season on Tuesday night against the Rays, but he was fortunate to have had a two-run cushion entering the bottom of the ninth inning. In starting off with a four-pitch walk to Brandon Lowe, Treinen followed in his recent trend of not throwing enough strikes. Over his six innings pitched in the month of June, he has issued seven walks while locating in the strike zone at an anemic 31.9 percent rate and throwing first-pitch strikes just 41.4 percent of the time.

The walk came back to hurt Treinen, as Lowe scored on a two-out Willy Adames single to cut the Athletics’ lead to one run. However, he stranded Adames by getting Kevin Kiermaier to ground out for the final out.
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The back end of the Athletics’ bullpen figured to be a strength coming into this season, but the struggles of Lou Trivino and Blake Treinen continued on Sunday. Trivino’s season had actually been going well until two weeks ago, but it has gone downhill quickly. Heading into Sunday’s game with the Rangers, he had given up nine runs (eight earned) on 10 hits and five walks over his previous 5.2 innings. Trivino had not experienced any notable change in his velocity or pitch mix, but he was suddenly very hittable, getting only six swinging strikes in 115 pitches.

He threw 19 pitches on Sunday without a single swing-and-miss. After retiring Nomar Mazara to start the bottom of the eighth inning, he coughed up four straight hits (two doubles and two singles) and allowed the Rangers to chisel two runs off an 8-3 lead. A third run was charged to Trivino when Rougned Odor stole home with Ryan Buchter pitching, with the lefty having entered the game with two outs and runners on the corners.
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Some weekend IL moves could disturb the tranquility in the Rockies’ and Pirates’ outfields, while the Cubs have already made a notable shift there. Here’s the weekly NL lineup breakdown.

Arizona

Christian Walker has started seven games in a row, so even with Kevin Cron back up from the minors, there is no apparent first base controversy. Cron could fill the DH slot for this weekend’s series in Toronto, and it would not be surprising if he got sent down afterwards.
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I know we’ve heard this before, but Chris Woodward is saying once again that he is close to returning Jose Leclerc to the Rangers’ closer role. The last time Woodward raised this possibility, Shawn Kelley was on the verge of coming off the IL, and in a surprise move, he put Kelley in a save situation the day he was activated and five days after he had lumps removed from his vocal cords (which turned out to be benign).

Maybe Kelley staved off that seemingly inevitable move by nailing down the Rangers’ 4-3 win over the Orioles on Thursday night. If Leclerc is going to take his old job back, it won’t happen in Friday night’s series opener against the Athletics, as neither he nor Kelley will be available. While there is still a lull in Leclerc’s closer activity, now is the time to add him. He is still available in at least 40 percent of leagues on ESPN, CBS and Yahoo. Over his last 11.2 innings, he has been showing the form that made him one of the top relievers in the second half of 2018, posting a 1.54 ERA, 0.43 WHIP, 57.5 percent K% and 5.0 percent BB%.
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The Giants are not exactly one of the tougher matchups for a pitcher, and especially not for a lefty, as they rank dead last in wOBA against southpaws. Even so, I did not see Jason Vargas tossing a complete-game shutout against them on Wednesday night.

Given the lack of resistance we have come to expect from the Giants’ lineup, that start alone probably would not have made me take notice of Vargas as a fantasy option going forward. Wednesday’s outing in combination with his previous start — a seven-inning, one-run affair on the road against the Dodgers — does give me reason to pause. Looking even further back, Vargas had been effective over a five-start run that was interrupted by an IL stint for a strained hamstring. During that stretch, he posted a 2.74 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP, and though he did not last more than 5.1 innings in any of those starts, he recorded three game scores above 50 and never fell below a 45 game score.
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The Cubs activated Pedro Strop on Tuesday, and we quickly found out there would be no easing-in period for him. Kyle Hendricks gave the Cubs seven strong innings against the Rockies, and when he left with a 5-3 lead, erstwhile closer Steve Cishek came in to pitch the eighth inning. Newcomer Carlos Gonzalez hit a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning that extended the lead to three runs, and then Joe Maddon called on Strop for the save in the ninth.

Though only one of his 17 pitches resulted in a swinging strike, Strop’s return was drama-free, as he induced three ground ball outs. His average fastball velocity of 93.8 mph was only slightly below his prior average of 94.3 mph. Strop is starting to find some new owners now that he has been activated, but he is still widely available in 12-team mixed leagues. He is clearly an upgrade over Blake Parker, both in terms of likely usage and skill set, yet Parker is more widely owned in both CBS and ESPN leagues.
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It has not been easy to predict who will get the Red Sox’s next save on any given day, but with 20-20 hindsight, there has usually been a clear logic to Alex Cora’s bullpen usage decisions. I will fully admit, though, that I am lacking for a convincing explanation as to why he had Matt Barnes pitch the eighth inning with an 8-2 lead against the Yankees on Sunday night.

Perhaps Barnes needed to get some work in? Not likely, as he, Brandon Workman and Marcus Walden all pitched with the Red Sox trailing on Saturday after not having been used in four days. Maybe Cora was being extra cautious with a tough part of the Yankees’ lineup coming up? That’s more likely, as the 1-2-3 hitters — DJ LeMahieu, Luke Voit and Gary Sanchez kicked off the Yankees’ portion of the inning. Barnes allowed each of them to reach base, and then LeMahieu scored on a balk. Voit and Sanchez would eventually score, too, whittling the Red Sox’s lead down to three runs.
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This week’s lineup analysis includes some not-so-great news for Keston Hiura, but some encouraging developments for Matt Carpenter and Kyle Schwarber…

Arizona

Christian Walker hasn’t lost much playing time to Kevin Cron, having started five of the seven games since the latter first baseman’s callup. Cron is now out of the picture, having been optioned back to Triple-A Reno after Thursday’s game. During the Cron Era, Walker was just 3 for 22 with six strikeouts, with two of those hits (including a home run) coming on Thursday.
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Wednesday was not a good day for the two best closers of 2018. Edwin Diaz blew his second save of the season after entering the bottom of the ninth with an 8-5 lead against the Dodgers. Coming into the game, the Mets’ closer had allowed little damage when facing lefties, holding them to a collective .071/.133/.214 slash line, but Joc Pederson and Max Muncy defied the trend, hitting back-to-back homers to begin the Dodgers’ half of the inning. Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger followed that up with consecutive doubles, with Bellinger’s erasing the lead. Diaz would face three more batters but would only retire the last one. Unfortunately, the batter was Alex Verdugo, who hit a walk-off sacrifice fly.

Just as he did a year ago, Diaz is missing a lot of bats (17.3 percent SwStr%), but despite that, he has already equaled last season’s total of home runs allowed (five). That may be something of a fluke, as his flyball rate is up only slightly, from 35.3 to 37.0 percent, as is his average exit velocity allowed on flies and liners, from 91.5 to 92.1 mph (per Baseball Savant). It may be a good time to get in touch with a frustrated Diaz owner.
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