Nate Freiman- OAK- Rookie- Frieman, possibly the tallest ever major league position player at 6' 8", reached base three times last night, singling as a pinch hitter and walking twice after staying in as the DH. Freiman has managed to stay with the A's, although he has only picked up 176 PAs. He showed power in the minors, hitting more than 20 homers in 2011 and 2012. There were doubts that he could handle major league fastballs, but he only has a 12.6% K%. Freiman may get a chance to develop more in the minors after this season once the limits of a Rule V draftee are past. He hit .417 in the early rounds of the World Baseball Classic and does have potential. The jump from AA to the majors was too much for him to produce this year, though. Freiman will get more playing time with Josh Reddick on the DL but don't expect too much.
Jeremy Hellickson- TB- Cold- Hellickson had his worst start in a stretch of 6 with only one of the quality variety. He threw 68 pitches and only recorded 8 outs before he was pulled. Hellickson didn't yield any homers, but didn't really last long enough to have much of a chance to add to his 20 homers allowed. Hellickson has not been lasting long lately and has been hit hard when out there. He has had some bad luck with a .373 BABIP this month before last night's game, but an August FIP of 5.70 shows that Hellickson has primarily been responsible for his own fate.
Emilio Bonifacio- KC- Hot- Bonifacio remains hot, going 3-for-5 with a run and his 8th steal in 12 games as a Royal. There may be some regression to the mean going on here. In those dozen games, Bonifacio has seen his BABIP rise 10 points to .287. His career mark is .328, not unexpected for someone with his speed. This leaves a lot of room for more positive regression in the last month of the season.
Jeremy Bonderman- DET- Cold- Bonderman seems to have lost acquaintance with the strike zone since his return to Detroit. After walking 3 batters in 2 IP last night he has now walked 10 batters in 12.2 IP. Bonderman needed 40 pitches to get through his 2 innings and only 17 of them were strikes. He has been fortunate in that he has only allowed 4 earned runs as a Tiger, but with a 3.99 BB/9 with the Mariners that has gone much higher there isn't much to recommend him down the stretch.
Franklin Gutierrez- SEA-FYI- Gutierrez went 0-for-4 in his first game off the DL, where he has been since June. He played in RF instead of his usual CF spot and didn't get to a couple of balls that he normally would have caught. This is a possible indication that he still isn't quite 100% back from his hamstring issues.
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