Last night, the number one overall pick in last year’s draft, Detroit’s Casey Mize , made his first start since being called up to Double-A, and he tossed a no-hitter needing only 98 pitches to do it. He allowed two baserunners, one walk and one hit by pitch, and he struck out seven. Mize has now made 10 starts in his minor-league career, and he owns a 1.29 ERA with 46 strikeouts in 48.2 innings with only five walks. So far so good, Detroit.

 

Pitching Performance of the Day

While Mize pitched better than anyone who threw baseballs yesterday, the major league pitching performance of the day belongs to Jake Odorizzi . Odorizzi blanked the Astros over seven innings allowing five baserunners and striking out seven. Even after getting shut out yesterday, Houston ranks second in the league in team wRC+, so this was a tough outing for Odorizzi. The matchup was even tougher when you consider the fact that he was facing Justin Verlander . Verlander generated the most swinging strikes of any starter yesterday with 14, but Odorizzi held his own generating 12 swinging strikes. Odorizzi was commanding the ball well, and generated swings-and-misses as a result.

 

 

Hitting Performance of the Day

Jesús Aguilar was the only hitter to homer twice yesterday, and he was also the only hitter with more than one at-bat with a wOBA over 1.000 for the day. Neither home run was cheap as he took one well out of the park straight out to center, and the other bounced off the facing of the second deck to the opposite field.

 

 

Shockingly, those were Aguilar’s first two home runs of the season after he hit 35 last year. Aguilar also started slowly last year as he only had one home run through May. He is striking out a bit less than he did last season, and he’s walking at virtually the same rate. His GB/FB/LD mix is also roughly the same. He’s not making as much contact or hard contact as he did last season, but given last year’s slow start, it seems entirely reasonable to expect him to come around. His .179 BABIP and 8.3-percent HR/FB rate will certainly regress positively at some point. With Aguilar only owned in 65.3-percent of ESPN leagues, you should check on his availability and hope he replicates last year’s upward trend.

 

Game of the Day

The heroes of the night were San Francisco’s Evan Longoria and Cincinnati’s Jesse Winker . Longoria came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh with the Giants trailing 2-0. His bases clearing double took the Giants from a win expectancy of about one-in-four to over three-in-four. The Reds jumped out to a 4-0 lead on the Mets, but the game was 4-4 after the fourth inning and remained that way until Winker took Edwin Díaz deep in the top of the ninth with the Reds eventually winning 5-4. After being taunted by some Mets fans in the outfield during the bottom of the ninth, Winker hit ‘em with a little Damian Lillard-like wave.

 

 

What to Watch for Today

We’ve got a full slate of games tonight, and only one team opened with a projected run total under three runs, Miami against Trevor Bauer . Bauer has some regression coming unless he gets his 12-percent walk rate in check, but this might not be the night his sub-2.00 ERA disappears. The Marlins rank 27th in the league in wRC+ with the lowest walk rate in the league. If ever there was a matchup for a guy struggling with walks, this is it.

There are some significant differences in weather this evening. There are rain chances in the Midwest with Kansas City, Chicago and Minnesota all with a decent chance of significant rain. It’s downright cold in the most northern cities with game time temps of fifty or lower expected in Boston, Minnesota and Chicago. Those are pitcher-friendly conditions if rain doesn’t present too much risk to use pitchers in those games. There are four dome games and two games on the mild West Coast where the conditions are almost always the same. The warmest and most hitter-friendly conditions of the day are in Atlanta, Texas and Washington.