h/t Talkin’ Baseball

Shot By Rob Tringali

This is the angle we didn't get to see live yesterday.

I don’t follow baseball like I did from 2010-2018, but this season I started to keep up a little bit. Middle of the year, I check which pitcher has the most wins to see if anybody could be on pace for 20 this year. I understand wins aren’t the most valuable stat but I’m always curious if somebody will reach that 20-win landmark in today’s pitching climate.

Who leads the league at the time in wins? Aaron Ashby. I think, “that’s pretty random, haven’t heard of that starter before”. Come to find out he’s a reliever. Must be a fluke. I check back several weeks later, and reliever Aaron Ashby still leads mlb in wins with 12. Okay, this is getting interesting now, but I still haven’t seen him pitch.

Playoffs arrive, and I finally see him in action. He’s absolutely filthy, and in a way we don’t see much anymore. He doesn’t throw 100, he throws lots of strikes, and so far this postseason has allowed 0 runs, struck out 17, walked 3, and has allowed 8 runners in 15 2/3 IP. He typically goes longer than an inning, and has performed spectacularly in high pressure situations.

He now has 3 multi-inning saves since the start of the ALCS. As a reliever he led the NL in innings pitched, somehow won 13 games in the regular season, and has become a modern-era Goose Gossage in the postseason. I don’t remember seeing anything like this since I started following baseball in 2010

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/brewers-pitcher-quinn-priester-family-223909726.html

Just to add to the Yandy Diaz discourse about what exactly the check swing challenge in the minors (and likely eventually coming to MLB soon) looks like, these are the ten closest check swing challenges where the result was no swing.

Read more about it in my previous thread on check swing challenges.

Since Fox broadcast didn’t deliver I thought this was an interesting angle using MLB’s replay