Jerad Eickhoff
Eickhoff doesn’t have a win in his first two starts, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t pitched well enough to get one. He pitched into the seventh inning in both of those games and has given up a total of three earned runs.
Against the Mets on Monday, the 26-year-old right-hander went seven innings, gave up one earned run on three hits, struck out seven, and walked four on 94 pitches in the no-decision. The four walks are high, but he had another number on his stat line that was higher than normal.
During that outing, Eickhoff allowed 13 flyball outs and had just three groundball outs. The Mets are a team that can hit a lot of home runs so it is surprising he didn’t give up more runs than he did. If the Nats can get enough flyballs into the air on Sunday, they could have more success than the Mets did.
On the Phillies staff last year, Eickhoff threw the most innings (88.1) and strikeouts (73) of any pitcher in the Philadelphia rotation in the second half of the year.
As for his numbers against the Nats last season, Eickhoff made two starts and had a 2.25 ERA (0-1 record). Adam Eaton was 3-for-6 against him last year with a home run and Jayson Werth is 2-for-6 with a home run and two RBI’s.
In both of those starts, the Phillies gave him minimal run support as they scored a total of two runs. Considering Gio Gonzalez only gave up four runs in four starts against the Phillies last year, it wouldn’t surprise me if the lack of run support continued for Eickhoff this weekend.