Roto Riteup: July 1, 2017

Justin Smoak’s first inning oppo taco broke the record for most homers in a month!

On the Agenda:

  • Gray Shines in Return
  • Cole Left Out
  • Folty’s No-Ht Bid
  • JBJ Caps Off Brilliant June
  • Turner’s Multi-Hit Excellence
  • Other News

Gray Shines in Return

Jon Gray returned to the mound for the Colorado Rockies with a brilliant effort in Arizona: 6 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, and 10 K. The fastball velocity was right at his 95 mph season average and he really leaned on his slider at 32%, netting nine of the strikeouts and holding the D’Backs to 2-for-15 on the pitch.

Gray should be on a roster in all formats and I’m open to starting him in Colorado more often than not.

Cole Left Out

I figured Gerrit Cole was a slam dunk for a big outing on Friday evening with the San Francisco Giants coming to town, but after seeing him get walloped, it made some sense. The Giants are dead-ass-last in wOBA against righties at .293, but they ended up being a rough matchup for Cole because of their reliance on left-handed hitters atop the order. Four of their first six batters are lefties and they went 9-for-20 with 6 RBIs and 2 HRs on Friday night.

While not all of the damage was off Cole, they did go 5-for-12 and pushed his season line to .292/.325/.579 against them. All that said, I don’t see how anyone could’ve sat Cole here with due respect to Denard Span, Joe Panik, Brandon Belt, and Brandon Crawford. I would, however, be careful with Cole against heavy lefty lineups.

Folty’s No-Ht Bid

Mike Foltynewicz took a no-hit bid into the ninth inning in Oakland on Friday night, but lost it on a Matt Olson homer before notching an out. It was obviously still a fantastic outing (8 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K) and capped off an incredible June for Folty. He put together a 2.97 ERA and 1.21 WHIP despite a hammering at Washington (3.3 IP/11 H/8 ER) mixed in. Outside of that start, he went 7 IP/0 ER, 7 IP/0 ER, 6 IP/2 ER, 5 IP/1 ER, and 8 IP/1 ER. In fact, Folty now has a 3.45 ERA over his last 10 starts.

The issue is that his down starts are really bad. In addition to the thrashing against the Nats, he has a 4 IP/7 ER v. StL and 4 IP/5 ER at SF. The same thing happened last year with five starts of at least 5 ER, all of which were fewer than six innings. If you look at his 2016-17 combined, it’s a 4.11 ERA which is probably true talent meaning he could be between 3.70 and 4.50.

Turner’s Multi-Hit Excellence

Did you know that Justin Turner has two or more hits in 26 of his 57 games played this season? He came off the DL on June 9th and has a filthy .415/.519/.692 line with 5 HR in 79 PA. Additionally, Turner is obliterating lefties this year with an 1.196 OPS and 4 HR in 85 PA so far. He had a .640 OPS and 5 HR in 198 PA against southpaws last year and a .745 OPS with 5 HR in 128 PA back in 2015. Turner remains one of the most underrated hitters in the game.

JBJ Caps Off Brilliant June

Jackie Bradley Jr. finished June with his second straight three-hit game, pushing his line to .353/.431/.578 for the month with 14 extra-base hits among his 36 total hits. He’s actually be on fire since mid-May. After dropping to .182 on May 14th, he had back-to-back multi-hit games with a homer in each and since then he has a .331/.433/.593 line with 8 HR in 171 PA. All of a sudden, his triple slash is better than his 2016 across the board.

Other News





Paul is the Editor of Rotographs and Content Director for OOTP Perfect Team. Follow Paul on Twitter @sporer and on Twitch at sporer.

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Jackie T.
6 years ago

Sporer working overtime this weekend. Appreciated, man.