Bryan Woo is due to start this evening against the Athletics in Seattle. I expect he’ll go six innings. Why? Because he’s gone at least six innings in all 24 of his starts this season. Woo’s streak, as you’ve probably guessed, is the longest in baseball by some distance. Only two other active pitchers — Cristopher Sánchez and Spencer Schwellenbach — have gone six or more in their 10 most recent starts. (Schwellenbach will keep that streak going through the end of the year, having fractured his elbow in June.)

The fact that Woo has completed six innings every time he’s taken the mound this year is self-evident proof that he’s been consistent. But at the same time, this yearlong run of metronomity has not been interrupted by bursts of transcendence. He’s only recorded one out in the eighth inning all season. He hasn’t posted back-to-back scoreless starts since June of last year, and he’s still looking for the first double-digit strikeout game of his entire major league career.

On April 12, Woo allowed one run across seven innings in a 9-2 win over the Rangers, lowering his ERA to 2.84. Ever since then, his ERA has always been within half a run in either direction of 3.00. It hasn’t been more than a quarter of a run from 3.00 since the second week of June. The man is a machine. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about sports equivalents to baseball’s bat crack, Colson Montgomery’s torpedo bat, reserving judgement on the MVP race, Francisco Alvarez’s minor league reset (and subsequent injury), a Kyle Tucker slump/injury update, the hot hitting of Giancarlo Stanton and Jakob Marsee, the Twins’ new knuckleballer, Pierson Ohl, and the ramifications of MLB’s impending deal with ESPN (and other broadcast partners), followed by (1:19:16) listener emails about a baserunner catching a pickoff throw, an ill-timed umpire sneeze, and the post-realignment future of MLB awards, plus (1:36:36) follow-ups.

Audio intro: Moon Hound, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to O’Neil clip
Link to bat-crack article 1
Link to bat-crack article 2
Link to bat-crack article 3
Link to bat-crack article 4
Link to bat-crack article 5
Link to tennis strings wiki
Link to catgut wiki
Link to WaPo on Changeover
Link to Changeover
Link to Nathan on Hang Up
Link to James on Montgomery
Link to previous Alvarez banter
Link to Alvarez leaderboard
Link to Tucker injury article
Link to Stanton leaderboard
Link to Marsee leaderboard
Link to Baumann on Marsee
Link to article on Ohl
Link to Yahoo broadcast report
Link to The Athletic broadcast report
Link to WSJ broadcast report
Link to The Athletic on ESPN’s plan
Link to MLBTR summary
Link to Hang Up on ESPN/NFL
Link to Cooper’s post
Link to enshittification wiki
Link to listener emails database

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Nathan Eovaldi is flying under the radar. Unless you’re particularly attuned to the Rangers’ battle to get back to .500 — they’re 63-65 after a recent 1-8 skid — or doing more than a casual perusal of our leaderboards, you might miss that the 35-year-old righty is carrying a 1.76 ERA into the final third of August. A bout of elbow inflammation that sidelined him for a month has left him just short qualifying for the American League lead, but even so, he’s in the midst of one of the best seasons of his career.

It’s an unlikely, out-of-nowhere season, at that. Eovaldi has e(o)volved a great deal since he debuted with the Dodgers in 2011, but even in the second, more successful leg of his career — the years since his 2017 Tommy John surgery (his second), during which he’s won a pair of World Series rings and made two All-Star teams — he’s never posted a full-season ERA lower than 3.63 (2023 with the Rangers) or an ERA- lower than 82 (2021 with the Red Sox). From 2018–24, he put up a 3.94 ERA (91 ERA-) for the Rays, Red Sox, and Rangers, including a 3.80 mark for Texas last year, which was right at the park-adjusted league average (100 ERA-). That recent work led the Rangers to re-sign him to a three-year, $75 million deal this past winter.

Eovaldi has been on this particular run for a while. After his six-inning, two-run effort against the Red Sox on Opening Day, the highest his ERA has been at any point (setting aside in-game fluctuations) was 2.64, on April 19. Beginning with his next start on April 25 against the Giants and running through his turn on August 5 again the Yankees, he put up an 0.90 ERA and a 2.16 FIP while allowing just 52 hits in 80.1 innings. That stretch probably would have garnered more attention had he not departed his May 27 start after two innings due to what was initially described as right triceps fatigue and later diagnosed as posterior elbow inflammation. He didn’t pitch in the majors again until June 27, when he allowed three runs in three innings against the Mariners, the only time during that 3 1/2-month span in which he allowed more than one run. Read the rest of this entry »

We thought we knew what to expect from Maikel Garcia. Coming into his third full season in the majors, the Royals third baseman had a career wRC+ of 77, but thanks to his 17 OAA, he’d put up 3.4 WAR. That added up to a story as old as time – or at least as old as Ke’Bryan Hayes – a good-not-great, all-glove everyday third baseman. This season, Garcia is blowing up that narrative.

Garcia came up as a shortstop, but with Bobby Witt Jr. set to lock that position down for the next decade or two, he quickly settled in as one of the best defensive third basemen in the game. As for the bat, well, he didn’t chase, he made tons of contact, and he hit the ball hard. He just couldn’t get it in the air. A total of 303 batters made at least 1,000 plate appearances between 2021 and 2024. Garcia’s 45.7% hard-hit rate ranked 60th among them, but his average launch angle of 6.2 degrees ranked 285th. As a result, his .344 slugging percentage ranked 293rd. The package worked, especially after Garcia became one of the best baserunners in the game in 2024, but it was hard to look at him without fixating on that one big thing he couldn’t seem to do.

Hayes is just three years older than Garcia, but after spending so much time waiting for him to start lifting the ball, maybe it was a little too easy to write off Garcia’s offensive potential too. The high groundball rate wasn’t his only flaw. Garcia didn’t just have a low chase rate; he was one of the most passive players in all of baseball. With little fear that he’d swing at all, much less somehow turn a groundball into a home run, pitchers absolutely pounded the zone, racking up called strikes and keeping Garcia from turning all that patience into walks. Then 2025 happened. Read the rest of this entry »

Janson Junk is making the most of his opportunity in Miami. Inked to a minor league contract by the Marlins in February, the 29-year-old right-hander joined the big league club in late May and has since gone 6-2 with a 4.04 ERA and a 3.08 FIP over 82 1/3 innings. And while his 17.5% strikeout rate is rather pedestrian, it is accompanied by a 2.7% walk rate — the lowest among major league hurlers who have tossed at least 60 frames. Indeed, pounding the zone has become Junk’s M.O.

Not bad for someone whose track record is that of a well-traveled pitcher who’d done little to impress at baseball’s highest level. Prior to being signed off the scrap heap by the Marlins, Junk had logged a 6.75 ERA over 40 innings while toeing the rubber for the Los Angeles Angels, Milwaukee Brewers, and Oakland Athletics across the 2021-2024 seasons. Before then, he spent parts of five years and four seasons (because there was no minor league baseball in 2020) in the Yankees’ system. New York selected him out of the University of Seattle (where his teammates included Tarik Skubal) in the 22nd round of the 2017 draft.

Junk entered my radar in 2021 when he was pitching with the Yankees’ Double-A affiliate, the Somerset Patriots. That summer, Junk appeared as guest, along with big league veteran Clayton Richard, in a pitching-nerd episode of FanGraphs Audio. With that conversation in mind, I made it a point to catch up with Junk when the Marlins visited Fenway Park last weekend.

I began by asking Junk a question that has led to interesting conversations with other hurlers when we’ve talked later in seasons: What is the worst pitch you’ve thrown this year? Read the rest of this entry »

I thought the Astros made a nifty pickup at the deadline by sneaking Jesús Sánchez through the door while everyone was paying attention to the Carlos Correa trade. Sánchez is by no means a transformative player, but he fixes a platoon imbalance in Houston’s outfield and he can theoretically play center field. At least he can stand out there for nine innings without maiming himself.

But apparently the Marlins are the real winners in that deal. Sánchez has had a slow start in Houston, but I have faith that he’ll come around eventually. Either way, that’s not especially relevant. By moving this perfectly fine outfielder out of the way, Miami has made room for 24-year-old Jakob Marsee. Never heard of him? I don’t blame you. But since the deadline, he’s been the best position player in baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I dove into the wonderful world of Nick Pivetta’s middle-middle magic. It’s pretty crazy to think about. Pitches down the middle shouldn’t lead to a huge batch of called strikeouts, and yet opposing hitters can’t help themselves when Pivetta is on the mound. This two-strike dominance is fueling Pivetta’s best season as a professional. Obviously it is – all those free strikeouts can’t be bad.

When I see such an unexpected and excellent tactic, my mind naturally goes to the exact opposite of it. If Pivetta is getting ahead by doing this, surely some hitter must be getting victimized by having it done to them. If there are standouts in acquiring called strikeouts, surely there are players particularly susceptible to them. So let’s look at the list of the hitters with the most called strikeouts on middle-middle pitches, hereafter “meatball punchouts” with a hat tip to editor Matt Martell:

Wait, what? These are mostly good hitters! The anti-Pivetta being Gavin Lux is one thing – Lux is having a solid but not spectacular season. But Shohei Ohtani? Elly De La Cruz? The hitters who are worst at the thing Pivetta is best at are mostly great. Let’s look at it a different way:

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about torpedo bats (remember them?), Cody Bellinger’s good year and confounding career, recent comments by Craig Counsell and Aaron Boone, the impending call-up of Bubba Chandler and the recent arrival of Owen Caissie, the weirdest things about being a pro baseball player, a zombie-runner-induced ending to a pitcher’s duel, and Alien: Earth as a baseball show.

Audio intro: Philip Bergman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Alex Glossman and Ali Breneman, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Straw update
Link to Sam on Bellinger
Link to Clay interview
Link to Tribune on Counsell
Link to latest Counsell quote
Link to 2018 Counsell quote
Link to The Athletic on Counsell
Link to Brewers subreddit post
Link to Chandler call-up
Link to rookie eligibility tweet
Link to rookie eligibility explainer
Link to Caissie debut story
Link to Marte apology article
Link to Marte apology article 2
Link to Tigers-Astros game
Link to Oort Cloud wiki
Link to Ben on sci-fi
Link to Buck Bockai
Link to Dixon Hill
Link to Captain Proton

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Here’s Nick Pivetta’s signature pitch:

Or maybe it’s this one, complete with a skip-off:

OK, the man just likes skipping:

You might wonder why all of his signature pitches are tossed down the middle for called strikeouts. That’s because Pivetta is the league leader in a statistic I didn’t know I loved until I looked it up: called strikeouts on pitches right down the pipe. He’s the 2025 leader. He’s the leader over the past five years, in fact. Keep your reality-distorting sweepers and letter-high four-seamers; Pivetta gets the job done more simply.

This feels like an impossible skill to cultivate. You hear all the time about pitchers going into a lab somewhere and adding velocity or spin. New pitches? They’re a dime a dozen these days. A starter who hasn’t added a sweeper and cutter sticks out like a sore thumb now that technology and training make it easier than ever to branch out. Every year, the sliders get slidier, the curveballs get curvier, and the fastballs get faster. Meanwhile, Pivetta throws 94-mph “heaters” down the middle for strike three. How?? Read the rest of this entry »