I will be pretty ticked off if MIL has a top 3 offense all year. They have a lot of hitters who are just mashing, and they still have an excellent pitching staff. They're gonna be tough to knock off if that happens.
I think it's largely a pitch-identification issue. Sliders down and in are absolutely killing him and obviously the low and away change-up is still most pitchers putaway offerings for him. He has a 400 woba against fastballs. He's just doing jack squat with all other pitches.
His power has fallen off a cliff. The pulled flyballs are nowhere to be found. Most glaring this year is his xwoba vs offspeed is 204 and its 160 vs breaking pitches. Last year those numbers were 336 and 329. You can just tell that he is not identifying these pitches well by some of the swings that hes taken and their locations. Then again I feel this way about more than half of the lineup right now.
First pitcher since 1945 to start their career with 6 starts totalling at least 25 innings and an ERA under .80.
My question is, can he just teach his stuff to Kyle? lol. At least help get some IVB on the 4-seam