Bryce Miller returns, Sonny Gray's sweeper, and Ben Brown's roller coaster
Corbin Young examines Bryce Miller's return from the injured list, plus Sonny Gray's sweeper, and Ben Brown's volatility.
Bryce Miller had a brief outing after coming off the injured list with an elbow injury. Miller maintained his velocity in his first start back from the IL, besides the curveball, which dropped by over 2 mph. That led to an additional four inches of downward movement via the curveball.
Though we wouldn't expect Miller to dominate in his first outing back from the IL, he had a few splitter and curveball whiffs coming low and below the zone against the Twins. He'll need the curveball and splitter to have significant pitch separation from his four-seamer, with the elite IVB (18-19 inches), yet weak extension numbers.
Sonny Gray posted his third game with 15+ whiffs in 2025 on Saturday against the Rangers. For context, it's been somewhat of a depleted and underwhelming lineup for the Rangers.
Gray's sweeping slide led the arsenal, with a 45% SwK on Saturday against the Rangers compared to an 18% SwK in 2025. However, Gray's sweeper had a SwK around 22-24% in the previous two seasons.
Gray increased his sweeper usage (29.4%) to RHH in 2025, up from 21% (2024) and 25.4% (2023). He traded more sweepers for fewer cutters in 2025. That's evident in Gray throwing his cutter 26.3% of the time (2024) and 18.2% of the time (2023) to right-handed hitters.
That seems like a logical approach change because Gray's cutter has been brutal against right-handed hitters in 2025. However, the expected wOBA has been worse than his actual results.
Gray's cutter wOBA vs. RHH:
2025: .401 wOBA (.395 xwOBA)
2024: .274 wOBA (.329 xwOBA)
2023: .271 wOBA (.376 xwOBA)
Ben Brown followed Drew Pomeranz against the Reds on Saturday. Brown fits the "better in bestball" narrative because it's hard to predict when to start him. Brown's knuckle curve lost two inches of downward movement, but had a whopping 30.8% SwK on Saturday. That's nine percentage points higher than his curveball SwK before Saturday.
Brown had the Reds' hitters chasing the knuckle curve low and below the zone 47% of the time on Saturday with a 42% zone rate. That's notable because Brown has been throwing his knuckle curve in the zone more often in May (48.1%), though hitters have only chased 37-39% of the time before Saturday.
