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Posted at 12:00 PM EST. 

Cleveland +110 over ST. LOUIS

8:15 PM EST. We targeted Jean Carlos Mejia (RHP - CLE) last week in Baltimore and the kid went out and threw three innings of one-hit ball. Chances are he’ll be stretched out a bit more today but here is what we wrote last week regarding him; incidentally, this kid has earned another start:

Jean Carlos Mejia throws a sinker in the mid 90s, a changeup in the high 80s, and a slider in the mid 80s. He can plow the bottom of the zone with all three and has typically worked through the minors with low walk rates. He pitched well enough at the alt site last season to start this one in Triple-A, despite previously having never pitched above High-A. He hasn’t thrown more than 33 innings in a season since 2018.

All of that being said, Mejia came on in relief with Cleveland on the wrong end of a blowout last Friday and fired two-and-a-third electric innings. Five of the seven outs he snagged were strikeouts, and he got at least one with each of his three offerings. His swinging strike rate was 15.6% and his groundball rate was 63%. Almost every out he records is by way of strikeout or groundball and he was doing that at the minor league level too. As a sinkerballer with two usable off-speed pitches plus a fastball that averages 95 MPH with life, Mejía has the stuff to carve out a role in the rotation and besides that, any pitcher Cleveland calls up seems to be of interest because of how good they’ve been at developing quality arms.

Our next targeted “cheating pitcher” is Adam Wainwright (RHP - St. L) and his 4.19 ERA after 11 starts. Adam Wainwright is 39 years old and is pitching like he’s 30. Over the past five years, Wainwright has posted ERA’s of 4.62, 5.11, 4.46 and then suddenly last year and this year his ERA has dropped significantly. It’s no coincidence that his spin rate increased significantly starting last year. Adam Wainwright has a swing and miss rate of 8.9%. In his last start, it was 4.9%. Take away his increased spin rate and Adam Wainwright is a starter in big time trouble, even against the toothless Baseball Team.

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