Thursday, May 21
Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today’s edition is brought to you by David Adler.
Jacob Misiorowski gets all the headlines. But the Brewers have a different breakout pitcher who’s looking like the steal of the offseason.
That’s Kyle Harrison, who has a 1.77 ERA and 59 strikeouts in 45 2/3 innings through nine starts for the first-place Brew Crew.
When Milwaukee traded for the 24-year-old left-hander from the Red Sox in February, Harrison was all upside. He was a former top prospect with the Giants, but he’d never really put it together in the big leagues.
Then he got into the Brewers’ pitching lab. Now Harrison looks like prime CC Sabathia. (CC is the only pitcher with a lower ERA than Harrison through his first nine starts as a Brewer.)
So how did Harrison become one of the best pitchers in the league out of nowhere? Here are three key changes he’s made with the Brewers:
1) His arm angle is higher
Harrison had a fairly low, almost sidearm delivery last season with the Giants and Red Sox. This year with the Brewers, he’s pitching out of a higher arm slot — as in, he’s throwing more over-the-top.
Harrison has raised his arm angle from 27 degrees in 2025 to 33 degrees in 2026. (Zero degrees would be perfectly sidearm; 90 degrees would be perfectly over-the-top.)
That might not seem like a huge increase, but it is the second-largest change among left-handed pitchers. Only Yusei Kikuchi has raised his arm angle more.
2) His fastball and slurve are sharper
Harrison relies mainly on his fastball-slurve combo — he throws those two pitches 87% of the time. And both of them are better this season.
The movement on both pitches has increased (this is likely a result of his arm angle change). Harrison has added close to three inches of “rising” movement on his four-seamer, and he’s added about an inch of drop and horizontal break to his slurve.
He’s also locating both pitches better. Harrison is commanding his fastball at the top of the zone, and he’s commanding his slurve at the bottom of the zone.
Last season, Harrison located just 24% of his heaters at the top edge of the strike zone or higher. This season, he’s throwing 44% of them in those elevated locations.
Meanwhile, Harrison’s frequency of locating his slurve at the bottom edge of the strike zone or below has jumped from 48% to 58%.
3) He’s changed his changeup
Harrison’s changeup is a clear third pitch behind his fastball and slurve, but that changeup is a new-and-improved version from what it was before.
Between 2025 and 2026, Harrison turned his normal changeup into a “kick change” — a trendy new version of a changeup that can help pitchers get extra movement from how they grip and release the pitch.
Harrison’s new kick change is getting an extra five inches of vertical drop in 2026 compared to what his old changeup was getting in 2025. That just gives him one extra weapon to get right-handed hitters out.
HOW AN ELITE SPEEDSTER GOT ELITE ON D, TOO
Chandler Simpson is one of the fastest players in the big leagues. You’d think that would make him great in the outfield, too, right? After all, most of the best defensive outfielders are elite speedsters — the Pete Crow-Armstrongs, Byron Buxtons and Billy Hamiltons of the world.
In theory, Simpson should be able to run down fly balls that other guys can’t. But as a rookie with the Rays last season, that theory did not translate into practice. At all.
Bizarrely, Simpson was one of the worstdefensive outfielders in the Majors, grading out at negative-5 Outs Above Average, according to Statcast. That combination of elite speed and poor outfield defense is highly unusual.
But this year, Simpson has flipped the script, tapped into his speed and become one of the league’s best defensive outfielders. He’s been worth +5 Outs Above Average — top-five in the Majors — and is making a huge impact for a red-hot Rays team that boasts MLB’s best record after its sixth sweep of the season.
So how did Simpson pull off this neat trick? The secret is in the jumps. Mike Petriello breaks it down here.
AROUND THE LEAGUE
A monster two-way Ohtani game, a pitchers’ duel between young stars and Skubal dialing up the heat highlight the action around the league.
• Two-way Shohei Ohtani is back and better than ever. Hitting and pitching in the same game for the first time since April 22, Ohtani belted a leadoff home run and threw five scoreless innings to beat the rival Padres. Ohtani has an .885 OPS as a hitter this season and a 0.73 ERA as a pitcher, the lowest in the Majors for anyone with at least 40 innings pitched.
• Trey Yesavage outdueled Cam Schlittler at Yankee Stadium in a pitching matchup between the two phenoms that lived up to the hype. The Blue Jays rookie tossed six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts, which was just enough to beat Schlittler, who finally blinked in the seventh inning when the Jays scratched out two runs against the Yankees’ young ace.
• Tarik Skubal’s speedy recovery from his “Skubal Scope” continues. The Tigers ace threw a multi-inning bullpen session today in Detroit, just two weeks after his surgery to remove a loose body from his left elbow. Skubal ramped up the velocity, too (not quite to game levels, but high-end velo for a bullpen). He said after: “There’s a velocity number I was trying to hit. And I hit it, so it was a good day.”
• D-backs ace Corbin Burnes is set to face live hitters for the first time since undergoing Tommy John surgery a little more than a year ago. The plan is still for Burnes, who has been throwing bullpen sessions for the past few months, to return around the All-Star break: “I should be right on time,” he said.
• The Braves are off to their best start through 50 games since 2003 after another dominant start by their ace, Chris Sale. Sale has a 1.89 ERA through his first 10 starts of the season, and Atlanta has the best record in the NL at 34-16.
ONE OF THE BEST FIRST YEARS EVER
A’s slugger Nick Kurtz, the reigning AL Rookie of the Year, completed his first 162 games in the big leagues earlier this week, the equivalent of one full season. And what he did over that “season” ranks among the best career-opening stretches of all time.
This is the stat line Kurtz posted over his first 162 career games:
- .284 BA / .398 OBP / .581 SLG / .979 OPS
- 44 home runs
- 81 extra-base hits
- 107 walks
- 115 RBIs
- 119 runs scored
The 23-year-old is in historic territory with those numbers. Here are a couple of fun facts:
- Kurtz’s 44 home runs are tied with Chuck Klein and Yordan Alvarez for the most by any left-handed hitter through his first 162 games.
- Kurtz is one of just three lefties with at least 30 homers, 100 RBIs and 100 walks through 162 career games since RBIs became an official stat in 1920. The other two are Ted Williams and Juan Soto.
- The only other hitters, righty or lefty, with at least 40 homers and 100 walks through their first 162 games are Aaron Judge and Rhys Hoskins.
Oh, and besides that heck of a first year, Kurtz is also riding an MLB-best 43-game on-base streak entering tonight’s game against the Angels (9:38 p.m. ET, MLB.TV). The A’s record is 48 games by Mark McGwire in 1996, and the MLB record is 84 games by Ted Williams in 1949.
PAGING DR. ROBBY
Calling all fans of “The Pitt” — the Pirates just announced the perfect giveaway for you.
The first 20,000 fans in attendance for the Pirates’ game vs. the Cubs on July 25 will get a one-of-a-kind bobblehead of Dr. Robby, the main character of the hit HBO Max medical drama.
The Dr. Robby bobblehead giveaway is part of “Yinzerpalooza Weekend” in Pittsburgh this summer.
Get your tickets now at Pirates.com/THEPITT.
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RJ Hamster 