Robbie Ray's recent numbers suggest a bounce back
Chris Crawford analyzes Robbie Ray and explains why his recent success is a positive sign for his rest-of-season fantasy value.
Video Transcript
- Now that's more like it. Robbie Ray was one of the biggest disappointments of the first two months of the season after winning the 2021 Cy Young Award. And after allowing three runs in five innings against the Astros on June 6th, the southpaw registered an ERA of 4.97 in his first year with the Mariners. The last three outings for the left-hander have looked much more like the version we saw in Toronto, however.
He fired seven innings of shutout baseball against the Red Sox. Took a no-hitter into the eighth while allowing just one run against the Angels and shut down the athletics to the tune of one run given up on Thursday. So, which version of Ray are we going to get for the rest of 2022? That's an impossible question to answer, but he should look more like this version than the one that made us wince when looking at the box score for most of the spring. For the most part, anyway.
Let's start with the bat. He's not pounding the strike zone like he did in 2021 and probably never will again. And he's given up more hard contact than that breakout year. But his whip percentage is still in the 82nd percentile, and he's starting to finish hitters off with strikeouts as of late. So no, Ray isn't likely to be a fantasy ace, but there's still upside in his left arm. We should see more results like this going forward.
