Max Fried, Atlanta Braves - Max Fried was hit hard by the Pirates Tuesday, allowing five runs over four innings but the Braves offense rallied so he didn't factor into the decision. Fried's main weapon is his excellent curveball and the Pirates were all over it on Tuesday putting it in play six times and averaging 92.7 MPH on those batted balls. If you want to pull a positive from the outing, Fried did allow four out of those five runs in the first before settling in after that. This marks two shaky starts in a row for Fried and he's having some walks issues flare up as of late with two or more walks in four straight outings after having only one 2+ walk outing in his first eight starts. There's still a lot to like here, but we definitely seeing some regression to come back to what his peripherals were showing.
Austin Riley, Atlanta Braves - Austin Riley continues to mash, hitting his 9th homer in 18 games while going 1-for-4 with a walk. He's up to 25 RBI already on the season and 15 runs scored, and honestly needs to move up in the lineup at this point as Nick Markakis has been awful for around a month now. Riley still has a ton of swing and miss in his profile with a 32.9% K% with a 21.5% swinging strike rate, which can get concerning once the contact sample gets a little large and begins to level out, but for now he's able to keep this production thanks to a 52% hard contact rate. I could understand selling high on him if you can get someone to pay this full price on him, but the power is very legit and he's going to hit in the middle of the Braves lineup for the foreseeable future. (Snitker please don't play Ender when he gets healthy.)
Daniel Murphy, Colorado Rockies - Daniel Murphy hit homerun number four of the season in a 2-for-4 day at the plate. Murphy has started to get hot for the Rockies, extending his modest hitting streak to five games. He also has driven in at least two runs in four of those five games. Since May 21st, Murphy has a 137 wRC+ and a .348/.412/.543 triple slash with two homers and 16 RBI. He's settling in as the primary first baseman for the Rockies, which is impressive considering what the Rockies typically like to do with rotating players for mostly no rhyme or reason.
Noah Syndergaard, New York Mets - Noah Syndergaard technically recorded a quality start on Tuesday with three earned runs over 6.2 innings, but it really wasn't a good one. Syndergaard allowed just five hits in his outing but walked three batters and struck out just four. The outing dipped his K/9 to under a strikeout per inning that's the lowest of his career. He also has a career low 11.7% swinging strike rate, and he generated only 12 swinging strikes on 103 pitches in this outing. His chase rate is also down by 5% and the contact on pitches outside the zone is up by 10% as well. Thor just isn't himself this year, and batters are taking advantage of it.
Chris Paddack, San Diego Padres - Chris Paddack had his second straight tough start, allowing six runs (five earned) in 4.1 innings. Paddack's been plagued by the home run lately and while the three he gave up in New York to the Yankees certainly make sense, the two he gave up to the Phillies Tuesday match his season total to this point. Paddack had just six swinging strikes in the outing but still posted just shy of a strikeout per inning. Paddack has been missing with pitches more in the center of the plate in his last two starts compared to his usual outings, but he's still an exceptional talent and there aren't really any worries here for me.
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