Adam Wainwright, RHP STL Wainwright became the majors' first 10-game winner with a dominant effort against the Mets Thursday afternoon. Wainwright outdueled Matt Harvey by allowing four hits and no runs over seven innings to lower his ERA to 2.18. The right-hander has one more win than he has walks this season, and his FIP is 1.78. Last season, Wainwright had a 3.10 FIP, but he stranded just 67.8 percent of his baserunners and recorded a 3.94 ERA. His strand rate is back up to 76.8 percent this year.
Marlon Byrd, OF NYM Byrd had a total of 10 home runs combined in 589 at-bats over the previous two seasons and has only topped 12 homers one time in his career, but the Mets veteran, who was likely one extended slump from being out of baseball at the start of this season, suddenly has 10 homers this year after going deep off Cardinals closer Edward Mujica Thursday. It's hard to truly buy into Byrd's renaissance. He has a career-high 30.1 percent strikeout rate and his line-drive rate is just 14.2 percent. The outfielder has a career-high 46.2 percent flyball rate, and his HR/FB is also a career-high 20.4 percent. Byrd has hit 1,043 flyballs in his career, and his career HR/FB is just 8.8 percent.
Starlin Castro, SS CHC Castro's three hits in seven at-bats Thursday were as many as he had in his previous 43 at-bats, and his two steals were one less than he had all season. The shortstop's long slump has his average down to .243. Castro seemingly has taken a step backwards in most categories this season. He's striking out more, isn't hitting for average and is hitting for less power than last year. Castro's groundball rate is nearly identical to last year, but his line-drive rate is down two percentage points and his flyball rate is up two percentage points. That has come with a 4.0 percent HR/FB, down from 8.0 percent last season. Castro is a career .232 hitter on flyballs, but this year he is hitting .173 on them even though he is hitting infield popups less frequently.
Matt Cain, RHP SF Cain two-hit the Pirates over 6 2/3 scoreless innings Thursday to lower his ERA to 4.70. The right-hander once again is keeping the ball in the park - this was his fifth straight start in which he hasn't allowed a homer. He gave up 13 over his first nine starts. Cain has never before posted a HR/FB above 8.4 percent, but this year his HR/FB is 13.1 percent. Cain's fastball value is -6.3 runs above average this season, the first time he has been in the red in his career. However, his velocity is virtually the same as it has been since 2010, so his woes are likely related to location issues, a problem he appears to be working out over his last five starts (3.41 ERA).
Ben Revere, OF PHI Revere went 4-for-6 with a triple to raise his batting average to .266. The outfielder hit .294 with the Twins last season. So what's different? His strikeout rate is up slightly, but he also has a higher line-drive rate this season, 20.1 percent to 18.6 percent. His groundball rate is above 65 percent for the fourth straight season. The biggest difference from last season is that he's hitting just .209 on grounders this year, compared to .247 in 2012. If he picked up just four more hits on groundballs this year, he'd be batting .247 on grounders and .285 overall.
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