Dodgers infielder Max Muncy is an instrument of the Absurd, nor is there much evidence to the contrary. He owns, for example, a name that has traditionally been the province exclusively of mid-century private detectives. He’s also a former fifth-round pick who entered the season with roughly -1 WAR and yet who, somehow, is currently leading his club by that same measure. Muncy’s bona fides wherein the ridiculous is concerned are beyond reproach.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Max Muncy has once again had a rendezvous with the improbable. Batting in the first inning tonight against the Cubs, Muncy drove a fastball from Kyle Hendricks to center field — over the center-field wall, in fact. Instead of remaining over the center-field wall, however, what Muncy’s home run did instead was to re-enter the field of play and strike innocent bystander Albert Almora on the head. Did it kill or even just injure Almora? Signs point to “No.” But did it cause him a moment’s indignity? Yes, not unlike the sort one experiences just by living.

On Tuesday, for the second time inside of a week, two of the NL’s top starting pitchers in terms of ERA — the Cubs’ Jon Lester (2.10, third in the league) and the Dodgers’ Ross Stripling (1.99, which would rank second if he weren’t 4.2 innings short of qualifying) — will square off, this time in Los Angeles. On June 20, Lester got the upper hand, throwing seven shutout innings in a 4-0 win, the latest strong outing for the 34-year-old southpaw, who’s been on quite a roll lately.

Indeed, Lester has surrendered a mere two runs and 13 hits in his last four starts (27 innings), both via solo homers by Cardinals in a June 15 game that the Cubs won, 13-5. Only once in his past 10 starts has he allowed more than two runs (four in six innings versus the Pirates in a May 29 win), good for a 1.58 ERA over 62.2 innings. Depending upon the schedules of Max Scherzer (10-3, 2.09 ERA) and Jacob deGrom (5-3, 1.69 ERA) as well as the preferences of their respective teams, it’s not completely farfetched that NL All-Star manager Dave Roberts could give Lester (who’s a gaudy 9-2 to go with that ERA) the start on July 17 at Nationals Park, though you can imagine the pressure will be on the Nationals to make Scherzer available, health permitting.

Despite those superficially glossy stats, Lester is nowhere near the top of the NL pitching WAR leaderboard. His 0.9 WAR ranks just 26th in the NL, somehow behind the WARs of the likes of the Marlins’ Jose Urena (2-9, 4.40 ERA, 1.4 WAR), the Phillies’ Vince Velasquez (5-8, 4.69 ERA, 1.4 WAR), and the Mets’ Zack Wheeler (2-6, 4.85 ERA, 1.2 WAR), none of whom are likely to make the NL All-Star team, let alone get consideration for the start.

The disconnect for Lester is that his FIP (4.19) is almost exactly double his ERA, ranking 28th among the 43 pitchers with enough innings to qualify and 37th out of 59 with at least 60 innings; his 104 FIP- tells us that he’s actually 4% worse than league average on that front. The 2.09 runs per nine differential between his ERA and FIP isn’t just the majors’ largest this season, it’s the largest from an ERA qualifier since 1901. Even if you drop the innings threshold to 90 (Lester’s total), he’s just a whisker away from the lead:

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One could argue that, during the 2015-16 offseason, Jason Heyward was my hill. If that’s the case, I am now mostly dead. After producing almost six wins in his final campaign with the Cardinals, the outfielder recorded just a lone win in each of his first two seasons with Chicago.

I say mostly dead, though, because Heyward’s bat is showing some signs of life: since coming off the disabled list a month ago, he’s hitting .307/.347/.489 with a 124 wRC+. While that represents a hot streak for the Cubs version of Heyward, it pretty closely approximates what the team probably expected from Heyward when they signed him. Whatever the case, it is the best run he has produced since the joining the team.

Heyward’s swing changes have been frequent over the past few years. He has altered his mechanics nearly every season of his career. The Cubs hoped to unlock more power out of Heyward after he posted a 121 wRC+ for the Cardinals in a 2015 campaign during which he took a bunch of walks, limited his strikeouts, ran the bases well, and exhibited slightly below-average power. The Cubs weren’t wrong to try and unearth that version of Heyward. With his defense, baserunning, batting eye, and contact skills, the addition of a bit more power might have made Heyward an MVP candidate.

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It’s been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding his overly aggressive slide into home plate against the Pirates on Monday — a slide ruled legal by the umpires and replay officials at the time but later deemed interference by Major League Baseball, and dissected here by Craig Edwards — but Anthony Rizzo has turned the corner. Following a frigid March and April, he’s put together one of the majors’ hottest performances in May. In fact, he’s made one of the most drastic month-to-month turnarounds of any hitter thus far this year. His performance is worth a closer look.

Before we go there, though… to these eyes, Rizzo was in the wrong on the aforementioned slide into catcher Elias Diaz, just as he was last year, when he slid into Austin Hedges. I don’t have anything substantial to add to Edwards’ detailed breakdown of both plays, except to say that the three-time All-Star is going to wear the black hat for a spell as one of baseball’s villains. Perhaps he’s unpopular at the moment, but one play shouldn’t prevent us from noticing the other 99.9% of his season.

Though he homered off the Marlins’ Jose Urena in his second plate appearance on Opening Day, Rizzo went just 3-for-28 with a walk in the season’s first six games. After a bout of lower back tightness forced him to the bench for three straight games, the 28-year-old first baseman was placed on the disabled list for the first time in his career. He took an 0-fer in his return on April 17 against the Cardinals, and while he collected three hits in his second game back, the slump persisted. He finished April hitting a ghastly .149/.259/.189 for an NL-low 32 wRC+ in 85 plate appearances. The homer off Urena was his only extra-base hit for the March/April period (which I’ll hereafter refer to just as “April”), and he walked just four times (4.7%) while striking out 15 times (17.5%) — that from a player who walked more than he struck out last year (13.2% to 13.0%).

Inserted into the leadoff spot by manager Joe Maddon in an attempt to jump-start a flagging offense that had scored just 13 runs in its previous six games, Rizzo flipped the calendar to May in dramatic fashion, homering on the first pitch he saw from the Rockies’ Jon Gray on May 1. He homered again versus the Rockies the next day, and added another, against the Cardinals, on May 5. After an 0-for-5 on May 6, he entered Wednesday having reached base safely in 18 of his last 19 games, with four more homers and an active 11-game hitting streak.

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Over the last decade, Major League Baseball has taken steps to make the game safer for players on the field, not only instituting a seven-day disabled list for concussions but also crafting a pair of somewhat nuanced rules in order to avoid unnecessary collisions both on the pivot at second base and also at home plate.

On Monday, Anthony Rizzo seemed possibly to violate those rules, barreling to the plate in order to prevent Pirates catcher Elias Diaz from throwing to first to complete a double play. Rizzo ultimately succeeded: his collision with Diaz caused an errant throw, allowing two runners to score and turning a likely Cubs victory into a sure thing as the team went up 5-0 in eighth inning.

Did Rizzo actually do anything wrong, though? To answer that question, we actually have to consider two separate rules. To begin, let’s go with MLB’s slide rule first. The rule addresses the allowable — or, as they call it, bona fide — slide, which requires that a runner:

1. Begins his slide (i.e., makes contact with the ground) before reaching the base;
2. is able and attempts to reach the base with his hand or foot;
3. is able and attempts to remain on the base (except home plate) after completion of the slide; and
4. slides within reach of the base without changing his pathway for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder.

Here is Rizzo’s slide.

https://gfycat.com/HatefulAgonizingAustralianfreshwatercrocodile

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Jose Quintana’s season is a little difficult to figure out. In three of his first four starts, he allowed 17 runs combined; in that fourth appearance, he pitched six shutout innings. Over four of his past five starts, meanwhile, he’s conceded one run total; he allowed six runs in the other.

Is he improving as the season goes on? He struck out 16 batters against 11 walks in 19.2 innings in those first four starts and struck out 29 hitters and walked 14 in 28.2 innings over the past five outings. His ERA is much lower in the latter of those two periods, but his FIP hasn’t moved a great deal, going from 5.15 to 4.37. These samples are small enough that it would be fair to conclude little to nothing had changed at all, but given his excellent track record, there has to be something to Quintana’s struggles.

A year ago at this time, there were some questions about Quintana’s trade value for the White Sox after the left-hander started slowly. Over his first 11 outings last season, Quintana had authored a 5.60 ERA and 4.40 FIP. Most of Quintana’s issues in terms of ERA stemmed from an increase in homers and a poor left-on-base percentage. After investigating Quintana’s numbers, I felt that most of Quintana’s issues were probably luck-based and unlikely to continue. Brushing off those concerns looks pretty good in hindsight, as Quintana put up a 3.30 FIP and 3.40 ERA and allowed just under one homer per nine innings the rest of the way, eventually helping a Cubs teams desperate for quality starter innings. This season, Quintana’s issues aren’t as easy to brush off.

While Quintana’s current FIP might resemble last year’s figure at roughly the same point in the season, his 4.68 FIP is nearly 20% worse than league average after accounting for the change in league and park. Additionally, there isn’t a gap in contact quality that suggests perhaps Quintana is just getting unlucky. So far, Quintana is giving up home runs because he has deserved to give up home runs. He’s striking out fewer batters than he did a year ago while his walks have gone way up. These are all bad things.

If there’s any cause for hope, it is twofold. One, Quintana has shown some flashes of being the very good pitcher he was before the season started, putting up four starts of at least six innings and zero or one run with at least five strikeouts. The second reason for optimism is that Quintana is still tinkering.

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One of the more interesting deals of the most recent offseason was the Cubs’ three-year, $38 million pact with former Rockies swingman Tyler Chatwood. On the one hand, Chatwood had some virtues as a pitcher. On the other, in an offseason during which nearly every free agent received less than expected, Chatwood got $8 million more than Dave Cameron projected in his examination of the 2017-18 class.

Back in December, Eno Sarris wrote for this site that Chatwood, despite his apparent flaws, might be an adjustment or two away from a Rich Hill-type breakout.

You’ve heard of “spin-rate guys,” right? Well, Chatwood is absolutely a spin-rate guy. What’s interesting, though, is that he hasn’t converted that high spin into plus movement. Why? Well, it might have something to do with useful spin. Over time, Chatwood has dropped his arm slot to get more movement on his sinker and more ground balls, probably because he pitched in Coors. That robs his fastball of ride, though, and his curveball of downward movement.

An easy fix might be to just throw the curveball more. He only threw it 11% of the time in 2017. It got over 70% ground balls and above-average whiffs. Batters had a .164 slugging percentage against it last year. And that fits with the spin and movement on the pitch.

With about a quarter of the season in the books, now seems like a good time to check whether that adjustment has come and how the Cubs have fared on their investment.

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Yu Darvish has gotten off to a rocky start with the Cubs, and for the better part of 23 excruciating minutes on Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati, the 31-year-old righty’s struggles appeared to be more of the same. Facing the NL’s worst team, and having failed to last five innings in either of his two previous starts this month, Darvish needed 39 pitches to escape the first inning. Fortunately for the Cubs, he avoided a meltdown and more or less dominated over his final five innings, notching his first win as a Cub and perhaps turning a corner.

Darvish entered the game sporting a 5.56 ERA and 5.12 FIP in his seven previous starts with Chicago, totaling just 33 innings, fewer than five per turn. He had been chased with one out in the fifth inning in his March 31 debut against the Marlins and was pulled from the fifth in three of his next five starts, the exceptions being a pair of six-inning, one-run outings against the Brewers. On May 7, the day before he was to make his first start following a three-homer, six-run outing against the Rockies — a start that drew boos from the Wrigley Field crowd — the Cubs placed him on the disabled list with parainfluenza virus.

The timing of Darvish’s return drew scrutiny from the hot-take-osphere, as manager Joe Maddon could have started him against the Braves at home on May 14, a makeup game for an earlier rainout, but instead opted to give him “one extra day” and start him against the same opponent in Atlanta a day later. Maddon dismissed the notion that the team had a potentially hostile Wrigley Field crowd in mind, but Darvish’s departure after four relatively sharp innings and only 61 pitches added fuel to the fire, at least until the manager revealed that the pitcher departed due to a calf cramp. Nonetheless, the perception of Darvish as mentally soft is in danger of taking root in Chicago, bad news for a pitcher who’s just one-quarter of the way through the first season of a six-year, $126 million deal, even one who owns the kind of career numbers — a 3.50 ERA, 3.38 FIP, 11.0 strikeouts per nine — that testify to his talent and outstanding stuff.

So it felt like a lot was riding on Sunday’s start against the Reds, and it didn’t go well — not to begin, at least. A six-pitch walk to leadoff hitter Alex Blandino was followed by a six-pitch foul out to catcher by Eugenio Suarez and then a single by Joey Votto on the fifth pitch. Seven pitches later, Darvish hit Scooter Gennett in the left foot with a 91 mph cutter, loading the bases. While he tidily ended a four-pitch encounter with Adam Duvall via a strikeout on a high 95 mph fastball, the Reds got on the board when Scott Schebler hit a hot grounder — with an exit velocity of 100 mph, the fastest he allowed all day — to Javier Baez on Darvish’s seventh pitch, a ball that the shortstop could only knock down. Infield single. After a visit from pitching coach Jim Hickey, with the bases still loaded, Darvish managed to put the inning to to rest by inducing Tucker Barnhart to foul out to third baseman Ian Happ, limiting the damage to one run.

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On May 12th, in the first inning of the Cubs’ game against the White Sox, Jon Lester did something a little bit unusual: he swung at a 3-1 pitch. Now, if Jon Lester were not a pitcher, that wouldn’t be all that unusual. Since 2011, non-pitchers (another word you might use for these people is “hitters”) have swung at 3-1 pitches about 56% of the time — 55.9% of the time, to be precise. But Jon Lester is a pitcher, and he still swung at a 3-1 pitch. And the thing is, over the same time period — that is, from 2011 (when our data starts) to present — pitchers faced with 3-1 counts have swung at the next pitch just 38.3% of the time. Of those swings, just one in five was at a pitch outside the zone, like the fastball on the outside edge at which Lester swung and missed. It’s just not something you see that often.

That’s because, if you’re a pitcher, swinging at a 3-1 pitch is usually not a very good idea. If you swing at such a pitch, you might get a hit (pitchers did hit 27 home runs last year, after all!), but you might also put the ball in play and record an out. If you don’t swing on 3-1, you definitely won’t record an out. You might still get a strike called against you, which would put you that much closer to recording an out, but you might also walk or get hit by the pitch — and a walk or hit by pitch, for a lot of pitchers at the plate, is a very good outcome. Last year, pitchers took 5,277 plate appearances. They recorded outs in 4,522 of those plate appearances (85.7%). I think it’s fair to say pitchers are looking for any means to reach base available to them. Swinging at 3-1 pitches is not a good way to do that. And so, two-thirds of the time, pitchers don’t.

Everything I’ve just said applies doubly to 3-0 counts. Even regular hitters don’t swing at those pitches all that often — just 8.2% of the time since 2011, in fact. With two strikes still available, it just doesn’t make any sense not to give the pitcher a chance to walk you, and so upwards of nine times out of 10, hitters will let the pitcher prove he can find the zone on a 3-0 count. And when it’s a pitcher at the plate, the odds of a swing on 3-0 are even smaller. Vanishingly small, in fact. Thanks to a database query performed by my colleague Sean Dolinar, I’m able to report to you now that a pitcher swing on a 3-0 count has happened only seven times since 2011, or about once a season. Seven times, out of 578 opportunities. About 1 in every 100 times. Almost never. And — here’s the fun thing about this story, I think — six of those seven swings were taken by just two men, and all seven came in the span of just three seasons. Let’s investigate the history of this strange baseball phenomenon together, shall we? Come with me on a journey back to May 20th, 2014.

Whoops! I jumped ahead in the story a little bit. That there on your screen, right above this text, is Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants swinging at a 3-0 pitch in the fifth inning of a game against the Colorado Rockies. Now, Bumgarner can hit a little bit — at least as well as the worst big-league hitters can hit, that is. His career wRC+ is identical, for example, to Drew Butera’s. And he was behind in this game 1-0 in the fifth, with two runners on base and an out in the inning to spare. Perhaps he felt that his cause would be best served by a Very Large Home Run against Franklin Morales, who at this point in the game was pitching a gem (those of you who are familiar with the life and work of Franklin Morales may not be shocked to discover it did not end that way, though it wasn’t a terrible start, on the whole).

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Mike Clevinger is a pretty great pitcher. He throws 94 mph. He’s cut his walk rate in half since last year. He’s been the best starter so far this season in one of the league’s best rotations.

Mike Clevinger also has pretty great shoes. They’re designed by by artist Jonathan Hrusovsky. Look at these things.

Ben Zobrist is a pretty great player himself. In his age-37 season, he’s recorded a batting line about 15% better than league average. He still plays multiple positions well. He’s the eighth-best player by WAR over the last decade.

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