Game #56 Preview: Urquidy vs Stripling

After just one single loss last night, the Blue Jays will try to bounce back against the Astros this afternoon. The game is set to get underway with an awkward 3:07 ET start.

Blue Jays’ Starter

Ross Stripling will look to continue his newfound success, benefits he is seeing thanks to working with Pete Walker and reworking a lot of things. The early results are good, but the overall process of improving his numbers will be slow. Even after 1 run on 4 hits over his last 12 innings, he still sits with a 1-3 record and a 5.11 ERA over 37 innings.

Stripling faced the Astros back on May 7, and had a start that was pretty typical of his early season. He threw 3.2 innings, allowing 3 runs on 6 hits, walking 3 and striking out 3. He allowed a home run to Carlos Correa in that one, and ended up taking the loss.

Astros’ Starter

José Urquidy will go for the Astros, and he’s in the midst of a very strong season so far. Through 9 starts and 50.2 innings, Urquidy is 4-2 with a 3.02 ERA. He is a fly ball pitcher that allows a lot of balls in play, but so far that hasn’t hurt him too much, as he has allowed just 6 home runs all season. A lot of that is his ability to really get batters under the ball, as his 18.2% infield fly ball rate is 5th highest among all pitchers with 50 or more innings.

Urquidy made the start opposite Stripling a little under a month ago, and threw a pretty good game. He allowed 2 runs on 4 hits over 7 innings, walking 1 and striking out 2. The Blue Jays hit him fairly hard, putting 5 balls in play against him at over 100 mph, but only one of those turned into a hit. Ultimately, the two runs were solo home runs, hit off the bats of Bo Bichette and Danny Jansen.

Blue Jays’ Lineup

Reese McGuire has caught Ross Stripling each of the last 4 times, so I would imagine he’ll be back out there again in this one.

Until Cavan Biggio comes back (or until the Jays make a trade), the Jays will be trotting out their first 8 batters pretty much the same every day. This should be great news for the people who claim that consistent lineups will lead to more runs or something, so I guess we’ll see.

Astros’ Lineup

They definitely showed us yesterday why they’re the best offense in the league, putting up a 7 spot against Ryu and 13 on the night. Every starter, save for Kyle Tucker, contributed to the assault in which they pounded out 16 hits and looked far too comfortable at the plate the whole night.

Alex Bregman had the night off last night, but I would imagine he’ll be back in there this afternoon, likely in place of Aledmys Díaz.

Yesterday’s Heroes

Jonathan Schoop went 4-4 with a pair of home runs, a double, single and a walk to pick up the Monster Bat award. He also drove in 5, but it still wasn’t enough for his Tigers, as they fell 9-8 to the White Sox.

Blake Snell threw 7 shutout innings, allowing just 1 hit and 1 walk while striking out 10 to pick up the Pitcher of the Day award. His dominance earned him the win in the Padres’ 2-0 shutout of the Mets.

Raisel Iglesias came into a 3-2 game with none out and the bases loaded in the top of the 8th inning. He proceeded to get a pop up followed by a pair of strikeouts to end that threat, and then threw a perfect 9th with another pair of strikeouts, all on his way to earning the WPA King title. In 2 innings of work, Iglesias contributed .657 WPA to his Angels’ 3-2 win over the Mariners.

Find the Link

Find the link between Alex Bregman and Jeff Bagwell.

Stats retrieved from Fangraphs and Baseball Savant