The last time I wrote about Andrew Painter, I prefaced it with this: "We've all gotten burnt by the player who has 'turned the corner' only to blow up in our faces." I don't know if Painter was so bad Tuesday that it qualifies as "[blowing] up in our faces," but he wasn't good. The Astros jumped on him for five runs in five innings, with 10 hits allowed leading to much of the damage. But he allowed a pretty average 88.6 mph average exit velocity while striking out six and walking just two, so it's not like it was a total disaster.
It was bad, of course, and the damage to your ratios hurts at this point in the season. But think about this: Painter had a 3.12 ERA and 0.89 WHIP in his previous seven starts, a stretch that included a separate five-run outing. This is still a much-improved version of Painter we're dealing with, if not a perfect one.
Perfect would be nice; we'd love perfect. Painter isn't that and he may never get there. But he's still better than he was early on in the season, and he's still shown enough upside lately that I'm willing to keep him in my lineup for upcoming matchups against the Braves and Mets.
Let's hope he does better with those two. Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days: Free agency preview. Who will be the newest Dodgers?
I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Mike Axisa breaks down the top 10 free agents for the upcoming offseason. The AL playoff picture is pretty cloudy.
We've got some great races and some juggernauts looming for the playoffs. Dayn Perry breaks down the best and worst moves of the trade deadline with a month of hindsight to help. The top waiver-wire targets from Tuesday's action: Lazaro Montes, OF, Mariners (28%) – When it comes to waiver-wire adds, often even just flashing outlier skills is enough to justify interest, and Montes certainly has that.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
