Game 112: Yankees (Cortes) at Mariners (Ray) 4:10 PM

Scouting report on Ray from reddit:

They will be facing 2021 Cy Young Winner Robbie Ray. The lefty owns a 3.96 ERA through 129.2 IP this year.

some nuggets about him:

Ray has 2 main Pitches: 4sm and Slider (each 40%). He will mix in a Sinker from time to time as well. He has thrown the Knuckle Curve and Changeup, but very very rarely. Ray is facing mostly righties. So his mix is coming from there. Against lefties he will throw a bit more sliders but overall nothing really changes. His pitches arent exactly from the overpowering kind. So same as nestor he works more on location this year. They also dont move all that much compared to league average.

Pitch Value wise he has taken a big step backwards from last year. His 4sm and Slider are better than league average, but his 4sm was the 5th best Pitch in Mlb last Season. Its not even close to that this year. His other pitches are at about the same value as last year. One thing that is interisting: He started throwing his Sinker this year again. From 2017 through 2021 he didnt use it at all (biggest usage was 2019 with below 10 % still). So maybe that is doing something, but im just guessing here.

His splits against lefties arent as dominant as you would expect from somebody who almost only gets to face righties. They are better than his splits against righties (.675 vs .736 allowed OPS), but not THAT much better. Also last years difference in allowed OPS and Career difference in allowed OPS are about the same as this year. The slider does seem nasty to lefties tho. I guess you will have to be the judge of that this afternoon.

Talking about the elephant in the Room: His ERA is pretty high for a defending Cy Young Winner. Well first of all, its still not bad. But its also not good. Its a case of the Meh's. But ive got good news for MR. Ray: his expected stats say he got unlucky. His xERA sits at 3.54 (which is better than last years xERA (3.60), when his actual ERA was 2.84 and also a Career best so far) and his xFIP sits at 3.46 (though his FIP is also at 4.05). So from a statistical standpoint, Ray is in for some good outing to bring those numbers closer together. I just hope for him he starts next week with that.

The yanks have faced him 3 times last year. And ive got some great News: they got him out quickly out of all 3 (longest outing at 5.1 IP) and Put up 2, 4 and 5 ER in those outings. As for his outings this year: He got shelled a couple of times early in the year and then went on a pretty good run. After the All Star Break he got shelled twice again against Houston both times. But his last Outing was great again with 1 ER through 7 IP against the Angels.

Ray has been improving through the year until a good team got to him. Maybe the yanks can show us that they are a good team as well and maybe get some runs against a guy i think is playing above his numbers recently.

“I’ve rubbed up quite a few balls in my life” followed by 30 seconds of silence. Rucco and Maybin were definitely laughing while hitting the mute button.

Nestor gets the double play.