Braves look for Leiter touch in Sunday finale

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Let’s take a look at how Bryce Elder has recen …

Okay, let’s not. It’s been bad. Over the course of July, his xFIP is close to 5 as his strikeouts have plummeted and his walks have stayed high. His 4.86 ERA isn’t as bad as his … *opens eyes really wide* … 8.25 ERA in June, but at least his June peripherals were better. July has been mostly a disaster, and May and June (at least the underlying stuff) seem like an aberration.

Moving on to Jack Leiter, he’s been … well not very good, either. The highly-touted

prospect and former second overall pick has settled in as a not-very-good starter. His walk rate is just a tad south of 8 per 9, and his walk rate is solidly above 4 per 9. Aaand he doesn’t get a lot of groundballs, which means his expected metrics are all near 5.

Looking at Statcast …

He throws pretty hard, but that seems about it. At this point, Patrick Corbin (yes, that one) has been a better pitcher than Leiter. Actually, Corbin has been pretty good somehow this season, so we might chalk that a bit up to the Washington Nationals not being able to help their own players.

As for what to expect in this afternoon’s … showdown (?):

Leiter throws a wide variety of pitches, but they aren’t terribly effective. Leiter just turned 25, so he still has some time left to work it out as a starter, but it’s starting to look a little bullpen-y unless he can make some improvements somewhere.

Hopefully, he just doesn’t start today.

Game Info

Game Date/Time: Sunday, July 27^th, 2:35 p.m. EDT

Location: Globe Life Field, Arlington, TX

TV: FanDuel Sports Network South and Southeast

Streaming: MLB.tv

Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan

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