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Posted at 11:15 AM EST.

7:35 PM EST. Anibal Sanchez (RHP) left his last start with a calf contusion but is ready to face the Marlins here. Over his last seven starts, Sanchez has been really good three times, very shaky three times and once he was somewhere in between that. One needs to throw caution to the wind when looking at Sanchez’s 2.83 ERA and 1.05 WHIP, as it has been aided by a 25% hit rate, .243 BABIP and 80% strand rate. All three of those are luck-driven statistics that even out over time. That doesn’t mean they’ll even out today but it points that Sanchez has been more lucky than good. To put his luck-driven stats into even better perspective, one need not look no further than this same pitcher last year. In 2017, Anibal Sanchez had a 65% strand rate and 37% hit-rate with a .354 BABIP. His ERA last season? How about 6.41. You see how luck variance plays a massive role in a pitcher’s surface ERA? We’ll lay it out for you one last time.

2017/2018 BABIP: .354/.243

2017/2018 hit rate: 25%/37%

2017/2018 strand rate: 65%/80%

2017/2018 ERA: 6.41/2.83

Anibal Sanchez is a decent starter but he’s had injury problems in the past and now comes off a start in which he was removed because of health concerns. He’s also been very lucky as outlined above.

Trevor Richards (RHP) comes into this start on a roll, as he owns a 2.61 ERA over his last seven starts and has thrown a pure quality start in three of his last four. Although being a right-handed pitcher, he dominates left-handed batters who have just a .569 OPS against him. Trevor Richards has a BB/K split of 9/32 over his last 29 frames. He now has 85 K’s in 86 innings. It’s also worth noting that before getting called up, he posted a magnificent 2.06 ERA for New Orleans of the explosive Pacific Coast League. Pitching in the PCL is almost like pitching at Coors every day. In any event, Richards is coming on big time and the price on he and the pesky Marlins makes this a decent value play.

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