Yusei Kikuchi vs. Joey Lucchesi, 3:40pm
About a year ago, I had the opportunity to write about lefty Joey Lucchesi, then 3/4 through his rookie season for the Friars. He started very well, but faded as platoon splits started to catch up with him. In the end, he gave up 22 HRs on the year, and *21* of them were against righties. As I wrote, his signature pitch, a funky “change-up” didn’t really work against righties because it wasn’t a change-up at all: it was just a regular slider gussied up with a new name. But the name didn’t make it harder to hit: while righties generally struggle a bit against a change from a lefty, they would be expected to fare well against a slider from a lefty.