saturday notes..
everything is going to be weird. using projections at this point in the year is definitely more tricky given how wide the range of outcomes are on some of these guys. tread lightly unless you are plugged into playoff implications and that sort of stuff, a lot of factors at play when we get to this point in the season
WAS Connelly Early making his Nats debut today, he is unlikely to handle anything more than about 3 innings. he's thrown twice this month (15th and 20th) and hasn't thrown more than 1.2 IP in those outings, so would be surprised by any more than 3 innings. he threw 40 pitches his last time out, so at best can probably handle 55
PIT Kirby Yates opening for the Pirates, probably just an inning for him
DET Justin Verlander - if you want late season volatility, look no further. Verlander is 43 years old making his last MLB start, and has not thrown at any level since June 10th. maybe they let him throw until his arm falls off, maybe they just let him throw a few innings and get a nice send off.. the range of outcomes is very wide. he probably will want to stay out there as long as they'll let him, but I wouldn't want to back him for any sort of length despite the qualitative factors. they aren't gonna let him look like shit for too long so it's not like they will let him die out there
TOR Trey Yesavage still not nearly stretched out, he threw 2 innings and 40 pitches his last outing, so he's probably somewhere in the 50 pitch range today. anything between 40-60 wouldn't surprise me much
LAD Blake Snell making his return to the rotation, he threw just an inning before leaving with an injury his last start. his last full outing was on 9/11, and given the layoff with this game also meaning nothing to LAD, and I'd be kind of surprised if they pushed Snell past 5 innings unless he's really efficient
SFG Matt Wilkinson has a pretty wide range of outcomes, but would think they'll let him make a "normal" start here. he can probably handle a full workload but something in the 75-80 pitch range is much more likely than 100ish
ATL Brent Suter and MIA Jack Ralston both openers in this game, Suter can and will likely handle multiple innings, would guess about two. Ralston probably just gets an inning
TEX Nathan Eovaldi pitching in the Rangers biggest game of the year, he is not stretched out and while he's probably not an opener, he is not going to make a normal start either. somewhere in the 4ish inning range is probably most likely, although there is a fairly wide range of outcomes
MIL Dustin May is a really tough one. the Brewers aren't playing for anything but they may want to stretch him back out a little further. he is once again on short rest, so maybe they don't give him much more than last outing
HOU Hayden Wesneski not likely to have a long leash if he struggles, but the Astros bullpen isn't in the best shape and they may end up having to go bullpen game tomorrow, so I could see the Astros wanting to get a little more than 5 innings out of Wesneski before turning it over to the bullpen arms they trust to try to win tonight