One great start and one solid start, both against great offenses gives Gray the player of the week
I was looking at the offensive performances over the past week and while there were certainly great performances, there wasn’t really one that popped. There were three position players I could have chosen, but not a lot distinguished them from each other. And while Sonny Gray’s start yesterday probably isn’t going to go on his highlight reel, in combination with his performance Monday, I think he warrants the pick.
The position players all teamed together to make it near impossible to pick a singular player. Brendan Donovan had a 3-hit game yesterday but didn’t do much else this week. Three players hit a homer, but not a single one of them had a good offensive week. Alec Burleson went 0 for 4 yesterday, or he’s probably the pick. Jordan Walker may should have been the pick, but I’m against it for hitting zero homers and striking out 6 times in 14 PAs. It’s also just not that many PAs. Victor Scott has a case, but only got one RBI, so it feels weird to pick him. Ivan Herrera had over a .400 OBP, but didn’t actually get an extra base hit.
So why not pick the starting pitcher with the best start of the week and a relatively solid start yesterday. On Monday, Gray had one of the best starts of the season when he went 6 innings, struck out 10 batters, walked only one, and left one of the best offenses in baseball with scoreless. Yesterday, he had a sneaky good start that was kind of unlucky. He went 6 innings, struck out 5, walked nobody, and allowed three runs. The Cardinals won both games.
Really the tiebreaker is the fact that Gray had two good starts against the 4th best and 6th best offenses in all of baseball. He had a 2.25 ERA across 12 innings with 17 strikeouts and just one walk against two of the top 6 offenses in baseball. You may not think yesterday was that impressive of a start, but he had a 1.41 FIP and 2.61 xFIP. So it was pretty damn good. I’d really be nice if Sonny Gray’s ERA started reflecting his advanced stats as a Cardinal. He’s over a win and half worse by WAR if you use runs allowed instead of FIP-based WAR as a Cardinal.
Start #1 highlights
6 IP, 10 Ks, BB, 3 H, 0.00 ERA/0.24 FIP/1.44 xFIP
Start #2 highlights
6 IP, 3 ER, 5 Ks, 9 H, 4.50 ERA/1.41 FIP/2.61 xFIP