Game 109: Yankees (Montas) at Cardinals (Wainright) 2:15 pm

Scouting report on Wainright from reddit:

Today the Yanks will face 40 yo righty Adam Wainwright. He is having a great Year, 3.11 ERA through 130.1 IP. On the yankees side Frankie Montas will have his first start as a Yankee (on a 70 Pitch limit reportedly though). So defnitely a Matchup worth watching today.

Some nuggets about Wainwright:

Wainwright has 2 key pitches: the Sinker (30%) and the Curveball (30%), this year he has used the cutter (25%) in a good capacity as well. He does throw a 4sm (10%) and a Change (5%) to compliment the other 3. Its also worth mentioning that he uses the cutter and sinker mostly against righties and his curveball is his main pitch against lefties. Which as a righty himself seem kind of odd.

But let me tell you one thing: it works. His curveball is rated as one of the top 40 pitches in baseball. His Sinker, which was amongst the top Pitches in baseball last season, is rated below league average this year. And if you look at the years prior to that it look like this year is more in line with his career as his sinker in the last 5 years really has been playing 2nd fiddle to the Curve. His other pitches are hovering around league average, which they also did the last years.

His splits are pretty even, with a slight edge to righties, which if you think about the Curveball and that it almost only gets thrown to lefties, makes sense. Wainwright faces even Lineups this year, so i dont anticipate a righty or lefty heavy Lineup today. His Strikeout per Walk ratio sits at 3.03, which isnt terrible but also not bad either.

His ERA is a bit lucky if you trust the expected stats. A xERA of 4.40 suggests that Wainwright is due for regression in regards to his ERA. Also a factor: Busch stadium. This series alone there have been a couple Flyouts that wouldve been gone at more than half the stadiums in the league. So maybe not today.

Wainwright is coming off 2 great outings. Back to back 7 IP with 1 ER and 0 ER. And the first of the two was Toronto, so no cheapies. Overall this year he has been having a lot of games with 7.0 IP and either 1 or 0 ER. Sprinled in are a couple of bad outings though. One common theme with his bad outings is that they come on the road. At home he has been fantastic so far this year. Home ERA: 1.79, Away ERA: 4.43.

All in all not that great of a outlook for today. But if i have learned one thing: never bet on baseball. Why? Because "baseball suzyn" is real. It wouldnt shock me if we shelled him or get shut out 7 IP. The latter seems more likely though.