The Washington Nationals have Jackson Rutledge on the mound for his first home start in his MLB career. That start last week certainly was not how you dream about your MLB debut given that it was a disaster on the mound. Forget the 17.18 ERA for a moment, and consider that his first inning actually had good pitches go wrong with three hits that found outfield grass via a groundball and two weak bloops by the left field line. Of course there were bad pitches that went wrong too — but if some more went right, who knows how that could have gone. Credit to Pittsburgh for not letting up on Rutledge who surrendered 4 earnies in the first inning. His xERA (expected ERA) was 5.64 for that start. Still not good, but that’s the difference with BABIP. What won’t work is giving up all of that contact.
In total, the 2019 first round draft pick was tagged with 10-hits because he didn’t miss enough bats plus that bad luck BABIP in his 3⅔ innings of work. You must miss more bats in 2-strike counts. Rutledge threw 52 strikes and only got 8 swing-and-miss strikes — all on fastballs and sliders. Not one on his changeup that played like a BP fastball too often, and was most likely attributed to the release point and shape on the pitch. It is a tumbler of a changeup that was working so well in Triple-A and could have been that nerves played into it with too firm of a grip — but only Rutledge would know for sure. This is where you wish you had Stephen Strasburg as an extra set of eyes as he threw one of the best changeups in baseball for a decade.
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