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Posted at 1:00 PM EST. 

8:10 PM EST. In 2016, Chris Tillman started strong with 2.87 ERA in his first 14 games but things quickly unraveled. His whiffs fell back to his career norms as his velocity diminished from April to October taking his command from passable to poor and leading to 4.64 ERA over his final 16 games. Tillman’s shoulder issues resurfaced this past spring, forcing him to miss all of April and since his return, the results have been disastrous (7.01 ERA, 1.94 WHIP) through his first 13 starts. However, Tillman’s ERA two starts ago was 7.94. His swing and miss rate over his past two starts in up to 12%, which is very significant and suggests he’s getting his strength back. His velocity has increased from 90.1 to 91.4 over those two starts also. The type of skills collapse we saw earlier from Tillman typically reeks of a hidden injury and while we would not trust him for a second as the chalk, there are at least signs of a rebound and we would trust him more than Andrew Cashner 100% of the time.

Cashner's 2017 stats (3.64 ERA) have been far better than his skills report (5.35 xERA). With a paltry 4.3 K’s/9 entering this start and overall poor command (94 IP - 41 BB - 47 K’s), only a 50% groundball rate and a 77% strand rate have saved Cashner to this point. Add in no pure quality starts and nearly half pure disaster starts and unless things turn around quickly from a skills standpoint, it won't be long before Cashner's sub-4 ERA is history. Cashner is riding a wave of good fortune right now. Thus, what we have here are two pitchers in line for an ERA correction. Cashner’s shiny ERA cannot hold up while Tillman’s ERA cannot remain so high. Of course, anything can happen here but we’re getting the better offense in a hitter’s park against a struggling team whose batting averages have been sinking for six weeks and counting.

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