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Game Notes: Archer vs Eovaldi

By Adam Sanford
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

After being close to perfect in April, Chris Archer has had considerably less success during the month of May. In only two starts this month, he has already allowed triple the amount of runs he had allowed in all of April.

So, Archer is looking to hopefully rebound tonight against the New York Yankees. His opponent on the mound will be Nathan Eovaldi, who will be facing the Rays for the first time in his career, but poses quite a threat.

Eovaldi has been decent so far in his debut season with the Yankees, averaging a little over 5 innings a start. He sports an ERA of 3.97, FIP of 4.47, a 6.6 K/9% and 2.4 BB/9% in 34 innings pitched. Eovaldi started his career with the Dodgers, then was traded in 2012 to the Marlins for Hanley Ramirez and former Rays reliever Randy Choate.

This past offseason, the Yankees acquired him for David Phelps and Martin Prado.

Lineups:

Yankees:

Rays:

Kevin Kiermaier gets the start at leadoff with a righty pitching, also James Loney and Logan Forsythe swap spots in the order, and Brandon Guyer who has been playing very well gets a start against a righty.

Eovaldi Scouting Report:

Eovaldi posses some high octane pitches, a fastball (54%) and sinker (0.15%) in the upper 90's, while also throwing a slider (29%), splitter (6%), and change (0.30%) in the mid 80's, and also can throw a curve (11%) in the mid 70's.

Eovaldi's fastball is quick enough that it can effective anywhere in the zone and he uses it as such. He's thrown one sinker this year and it was a ball. With his slider, Eovaldi sweeps it along the bottom of the zone, towards the shins of lefties, while having break low and away from righties. With his curve, he tries to either backdoor lefties or having break down out of the zone; to righties, he breaks it down and away from them. He has his splitter, that just dives below the zone to both lefties and righies. He's only thrown two changes, both were balls.

Other Rays News:

- Chris Archer only needs to go 2 innings and he'll surpass Paul Wilson for 19th all time on the franchise leader board for innings pitched. Also, Asdrubal Cabrera only needs one hit to reach 1,000 for his career

- The Rays defense has been really good

- Andrew Velazquez, who was acquired in the Jeremy Hellickson trade, will be on the shelf for a couple of months after undergoing surgery

- Not Rays related, but the Carolina Mudcats (Single-A+ team for the Cleveland Indians) team bus was involved in a wreck earlier this morning. No one was seriously injured, but several players were taken to the hospital

- May 12 in Rays history

  • Josh Phelps (1978) and Felipe Lopez (1980) are born.
  • 2000, traded Dave Martinez to the Chicago Cubs for Mark Guthrie

Go Rays!

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