6 years agoPittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Ivan Nova allowed five runs (four earned) in 5 1/3 innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday en route to his fifth loss of the year. The home run ball did Nova in, as he allowed a grand slam to Eugenio Suarez in the third inning and a solo blast to Jesse Winker in the fifth. He allowed seven hits in total, walked two, and struck out four. Nova now holds a 7.61 ERA over his last five starts and has allowed six home runs in that span. Given his lack of strikeout stuff and his place near the top of exit velocity leaderboards, he's a hard pitcher for fantasy owners to trust moving forward. Coming into Thursday, only two pitchers with 100 or more batted balls allowed had given up a higher average exit velocity than Nova (91.4 mph). He'll hope to turn things around against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday.--Matt Wilkes
Source: MLB.com