Jake

I don't think Kopech is affected by the quality of the competition as much as just his own consistency. AAA hitters haven't shown any ability to hit him so it's just a matter of whether you want him to work through control and third pitch stuff in AAA or MLB.

Strike 3 is the one that was in the zone.

I would like, at whatever time it's needed, for Yolmer to try out the OF. I'm not sure if he has the athleticism to cover CF but you can see some of that Zobrist-esque full-time utility guy in Yolmer.

Well now I wish we had developed Fry as a starter.

Leury's a nice little player. There was a point in time when we had Semien, Saladino, Micah Johnson, Leury, and Yolmer in the minors and it sure felt at the time like we had an embarrassment of riches when it came to high-floor, low-ish ceiling versatile infielders. Turns out we were mostly right. I think we'd be happy to have kept Semien in the system, but getting some value for Micah when we could was impressive and Saladino's age and possibly health ended up making him expendable.

Good lord did Moncada smash that ball

I'm a stats guy, it's just who I am

Soriano had two god-level years with UZR in his first two season with the Cubs. DRS liked him that much in one of those years as well, though DRS rightly (I think) had it all riding on his tremendous arm whereas UZR was giving Soriano massive range which I don't believe he was truly covering (at least functionally)

"Todd Ritchie had some good moments for the Sox" Yeah I guess he did get guys out a couple times

Ha, I peeked

If he is I don't know why he differs so much from one outing to another.

lol, I hope the NBA gets bolder in their anti-tanking efforts

Unfortunately we decided to make it Chris Beck development night instead

He's already gotten beaten up. What's the use of killing the bullpen here? Lopez was struggling to miss bats but was throwing in the zone all night and looked like he could salvage some development from this thing. Instead we're all subjected to Chris Beck edit: You could tell Lopez was pissed because he didn't want to give Renteria the ball

Renteria is a fucking idiot

Funny-boned him

Lopez often gets on these runs where he becomes a perfect representation of the old command vs. control distinction. Tonight he's been throwing a lot of strikes but he's really not spotting it. It's hard to generate swings and misses if you're pretty much just aiming for the middle of the zone and generally not missing by much.

Lopez has a nice little cut up there

Look at all these non-cheapies

That Bell double this inning was hit 92mph. This is the only ballpark in MLB where it's a hit

"There hasn't been a cheapie in the bunch" says Steve, despite the fact they have mostly been cheapies

Don't know what to make of this outing for Lopez since he's gotten about 3 innings worth of outs

Acceptable outfield defense means Pittsburgh has only 2 runs, for sure

His DRS for his career is -1 and it's 0 this year. His career UZR/150 is 4.5, 1.9 this year. Statcast has him as 1 out above average, though we know that will be 0 after the whiff earlier today. EDIT: "His" referring to Delmonico's

Unpopular opinion but I don't think Delmonico looks bad on defense. It would appear all the major fielding metrics agree with me, today notwithstanding.