Today on Rates and Barrels, we break down three underperforming hitters.

And what about those little moments that you love, that make you love baseball?

And no, we do not understand why Bryce Harper uses toothpaste like that.

Let's go.

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Wednesday, May 27th. Derek Ben Ryperino-Seris and Jed Lorry here with you.

As we get started today, the Nick Kurt's 48 game on-base streak is finally over.

It's an impressive feat, Jed.

48 in a row getting on base against today's pitching.

And I did see an interesting nugget over on the baseball subreddit,

pointing out that Nick Kurtz is frequently challenged by opposing catchers,

and they are frequently wrong. He knows the zone probably as well

as anybody in the game right now, which is part of what makes him so dangerous. I mean, you combine

his bad speed with his knowledge of the zone and discipline on top of that, right? Like knowledge

of the zone, I guess, is one thing. Um, but the, the ability for him to command the strike zone and then square up

the baseball with a lot of force behind it is, is special. And you got to give, you got to give

credit to the kid. And then quite frankly, you got to get a little credit to the A's kid and then quite frankly you got to get a little

credit to the a's too for um you know when when they drafted him a lot of people said they

reached on him but this is a kid that is unbelievably talented and will be you know hitting at the

major league level for a very long time yeah on the challenged front i think it's pretty interesting

because he's such a

large dude that I feel like the catchers have more amorphous areas that they can be like,

ooh, that must have been a strike, right? Like, you know, because of the sort of of errand judge effect which is down below the

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