The Field of Dreams game is a good time. It's not my favorite baseball movie – it probably isn't in the top 10, sorry – but I do find the whole thing kind of charming. But there is one drawback, at least from the perspective of my job: No Statcast data.
That's especially annoying in Thursday's game, because the starting pitchers in that game actually gave us a couple of potentially noteworthy performances. On the Phillies side, Aaron Nola had a turn-the-clocks-back kind of performance, striking out nine and allowing just one run on a single solo homer over five innings of work. It's Nola's highest strikeout total in a start since early April, and the kind of performance that could be pretty eye-opening if it came with some kind of skills change. Nola has been a bit better in general lately, putting up a 3.28 ERA with 21 strikeouts in 19.2 innings over his past four starts. He's done that while throwing fewer curveballs and more changeups, an interesting strategy that I'd be interested to see if it continued in this start.
On the other side, we saw Taj Bradley continue to struggle, putting up one of his worst starts of the season. He was tagged for five runs over just four innings, giving up seven hits, including a couple of homers, while striking out just three and walking four. It's his third middling (or worse!) start in a row, and he now has 12 strikeouts to just 10 walks in 15 innings in that span.
Did Nola have a velocity bump? Did he continue the more changeup-forward approach, or did he revert to his more whiff-friendly curveball amid the nine strikeouts? Did Bradley struggle with his own velocity in a notable way? Did he change his pitch mix, or struggle with his feel for a specific pitch? It's impossible to know! Even watching the game, there was no velocity reading on the scorebug – though there did appear to be some when they would occasionally cut to an angle with the stadium screen on, weirdly – so these are pretty much impossible questions to answer.
My hunch is, Nola just had a game where he was unexpectedly locked in against a beatable lineup. It happens sometimes, even for pitchers who aren't particularly good anymore. You probably don't need to add him at this point.
As for Bradley? Well, he's enjoying the best season of his career, but I've never been quite able to fully embrace it, given how inconsistent he has been in the past. He's been terrific, but I just can't bring myself to just dismiss a poor stretch of starts like the one he's in, which has seen him walk more hitters than he has struck out in two of his past three starts. And going even further, he has 19 walks in his past six starts, a rate of 5.2 per nine innings.
It'd be nice to have some more data to grab on to. More data is almost always better, and in the case of these two starts, I'm inclined not to react at all without more data. I certainly have some heightened concerns about Bradley, given the result control issues, but I'm not sure there's any actionable advice to give – you wouldn't exactly be selling high on him given this stretch. Nola may be about to put together a great stretch run, or the bottom might be about to fall out for Bradley, but it's just hard to say at this point.
Pre-game Lineup Card
Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:
Trade values. My updated rankings and trade values are here as Fantasy trade deadlines loom.
Prospects report. 15 who could make an impact down the stretch.
Matchup analysis. Scott White takes a look at 20 potential pickups who could benefit from a soft schedule down the stretch.
Salary cap debate. Dayn Perry has some thoughts on how MLB can move forward without a salary cap or a labor war heading into the CBA negotiations.
Trend watch. Can Yordan Alvarez challenge for a Triple Crown? Mike Axisa looks at that and other recent headlines and trends from around MLB.
Hitting the Wire
The top waiver-wire targets from Thursday's action:
Tanner Scott, RP, Dodgers (56%) – The Dodgers have to make a change at this point. Edwin Diaz blew another save Thursday and he's now got an ERA over 11 and a WHIP near 2.50 for the season. Sure, it's always awkward to have to pull an elite closer out of the role, especially when you just paid them a huge amount of money, but the good news for the Dodgers is they have experience in this realm: They just did it with Scott last season! Getting Diaz right has to be one of the team's top priorities heading into the playoffs, but you can do that with him pitching in lower-leverage roles, and I think they'll get there eventually. In the meantime, Scott should get more chances for saves, and I'm viewing him as basically a must-roster pitcher in any league that counts saves at this point.
Walbert Urena, SP, Angels (65%) – In a different world, Urena would be 100% rostered and I would be getting yelled at for not viewing him as a top-30 pitcher and I'd have to be the cynic making the case for why his success is so obviously unsustainable. In our world, Urena has a sub-3.00 ERA and similar overall stats and metrics to Jose Soriano but hasn't gotten over 70% rostered all season. Sure, he's not this good, but he does a lot of things well – he's a pretty decent strikeout pitcher who limits damage on contact really well, well enough to overcome his poor control. There might be another level for him to jump up to if he can either manage to miss more bats or limit walks, but as it stands, he's a very useful pitcher who remains one of the most under-rostered pitchers in Fantasy. He had another good start Thursday; he gets a decent matchup against the Astros in the upcoming week, and then could have a two-start week against the Guardians and Phillies after that. Just go add him.
Abimelec Ortiz, 1B, Nationals (10%) – Ortiz has come as advertised so far. He went 2 for 4 with his fourth homer Thursday, and the homer was just one of three hard-hit balls in this game. He has three homers in his past four games and has a 1.122 OPS through his first 11 games. He hasn't started against a lefty yet, but he has started against every righty since his promotion and he does have six right-handed pitchers on the schedule for Week 22, so this is a good time to get him in your lineup.
Keider Montero, SP, Tigers () – Just when it looked like Montero's magic might be fading away, he goes out and puts together another excellent start. This time it was 6.1 shutout innings against the Guardians, with just three hits and one walk allowed. He also didn't record a single strikeout in the start, and you know I'm not buying much into this – I haven't believed in it all season. But he's sitting on a 3.22 ERA and 0.99 WHIP for the season while generating a bunch of weak contact, and if you want to use him against the Pirates and then in a two-start week the following scoring period, I can see the case for it.
Three Up, Three Down
Three big performances that have players trending up, and three that have the arrow pointing in the opposite direction.
Three Up
Braxton Ashcraft needed a bounce-back start
I'm not sure what he did differently exactly, but it was sure nice to see Ashcraft get a much-needed bounce-back start against the Marlins. He did throw his curveball with about four extra inches of drop, which helped it generate a lot of ugly swings and led to four of his 10 whiffs en route to a 10-strikeout, one-run complete game. Otherwise, he did a good job filling up the strike zone, and though that did lead to an ugly 95.8 mph average exit velocity, you can live with that when you get 10 strikeouts and a 50% groundball rate. This was his first quality start since June 24, and he entered this one with a 6.81 ERA in his previous eight starts, so it's reasonable to be skeptical. This might just have been about facing a Marlins lineup that occasionally just can't hit. But given Ashcraft's success earlier in the season, this should be enough to keep him in your lineup for the next start.
Cade Cavalli might just be really good.
It helps that his velocity was way up in this one to 98 mph with his four-seamer, the second-highest mark of the season for him. I don't necessarily expect that to remain the case moving forward, but the good news is that he didn't even rely on the fastball as much as usual in this one, as it was his third-most used pitch after the curveball and sweeper. The curveball is always his best pitch, but the sweeper really stepped up in this one, generating five of his 14 whiffs en route to a 10-strikeout game, his third of the season. Given the combination of borderline elite strikeout stuff (including a 28% rate since the All-Star break), good enough control, and a bunch of ground balls, Cavalli's 3.36 ERA for the season really doesn't look like a fluke. There's still some room for skepticism here – when he gets hit, he does tend to get hit hard – but I think Cavalli has the look of a top-40 starting pitcher.
The biggest concern I have at this point is just that he's already up to 136.2 innings on the season, 14 more than he has thrown in any season since 2021. That should give him enough wiggle room to get through the end of the season without being shut down, but you can never know how a pitcher will respond as their innings rack up.
Caleb Durbin just keeps raking
For the first half of the season, Durbin was one of the worst hitters in baseball. Over the past 66 games, he's been one of the best, hitting .309 with 11 homers after he went 3 for 5 with a grand slam Thursday against the Blue Jays. He's managing that despite an average exit velocity of just 83.2 mph in that span, putting up a .376 wOBA with a .301 xwOBA underlying it. That screams "regression," but as long as you don't expect Durbin to remain exactly this good forever, I think it's fine to view him as a starting-caliber third baseman. In fact, his overall line now – .253/.322/.410 with a 15-20 pace – isn't a bad place to put your expectations moving forward.
Three Down
Jose Ramirez doesn't look right
With the Guardians desperately clinging to long playoff odds, Ramirez came back from hamate bone surgery after less than six weeks, without so much as a single game on a minor-league rehab assignment. Given Ramirez's stature and experience, the team is obviously willing to defer to his wishes when it comes to handling a situation like that, but it's not hard to feel like he may have rushed back at this point. That's because of the performance, of course, as he dropped to a .197 average with zero extra-base hits in 18 games since his return after an 0-for-3 day Thursday. But let's not forget that injury scare last week that saw Ramirez miss a few days with soreness in his surgically repaired right hand. I think it's pretty clear he isn't 100% healthy right now, and while I'm not going to bench him, I don't think it's unreasonable to adjust your expectations moving forward for the time being.
Kevin Gausman stumbled again
I understand the urge to give Gausman the benefit of the doubt for a bad start Thursday against the Nationals, given that he entered this one with a 2.89 ERA over his previous three starts and just got a big defensive upgrade behind him by joining the Cubs. But I'm not sure he's earned the benefit of the doubt at this point. Even during those three good starts leading up to this one, Gausman had just 14 strikeouts over 18.2 innings, and before that he had been pretty terrible for about a month and a half. In fact, since June 1, he has a 5.91 ERA over 70 innings, a pretty substantial sample size. I think he'll be better than that moving forward, but I don't necessarily think the 35-year-old is likely to be a difference maker again.
Jacob deGrom's arm is acting up
Nobody seems too concerned about the fact that deGrom left Thursday's game too early. In fact, that's exactly what deGrom said, telling reporters after the game, "I'm not too concerned. Hopefully I'll make my next start." He officially left the game with triceps fatigue, but he is set to undergo testing on the arm just to be sure, after he was pulled after just two innings against the Angels. Of course, even if it is just fatigue, that's a little concerning, both because deGrom has just not looked as sharp over the past month and a half or so and because deGrom also ran out of steam down the stretch last season while dealing with shoulder fatigue. Running into arm fatigue two seasons in a row for a 38-year-old with deGrom's injury history is at least something of a red flag, no? I'm not giving up on him or saying you should drop him, but I think it's reasonable to be at least a little bit concerned here.
Extra Innings
Max Muncy made some Dodgers history
The Dodgers have a rich history. They've been part of Major League Baseball under one name or another since they joined the National League in 1890, and they're coming up on 70 years in Los Angeles, including nearly 65 at Dodger Stadium. This is one of the most storied successful teams in baseball history, and they've had 12 different hitters make the Hall of Fame since they moved to Los Angeles. Given all that, it's always weird to look at the Dodgers' all-time record books and see pretty underwhelming numbers at the top of the leaderboards. Did you realize the Dodgers have never had a 400-homer hitter? Did you realize Eric Karros is third in franchise history with just 270 homers?
Did you realize Max Muncy became the all-time leader in homers hit at Dodger Stadium last night? The fact that he's fifth in franchise history in homers – just 10 behind Roy Campanella for fourth! – makes that a little more believable, but then you have to reckon with the fact that Max Muncy is somehow fifth in Dodgers history in homers.
This is not to detract from Muncy, who has been a very good power hitter for a pretty long time. He's had an excellent career, and he's rightly going to go down as a pivotal part of one of the most successful stretches in franchise history. But it's still weird to see him at the top of a leaderboard like that, isn't it?
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