Michael Busch came back with another today. And this one was against a lefty. Not just any lefty, mind you, but one of the very best left-handed starting pitchers in baseball, Cristopher Sanchez. That is a very, VERY good sign.
The Cubs are sitting as slim -115 favorites, with the Phillies at -105 to win outright. Even with Aaron Nola on the bump, the books are showing respect to Colin Rea's undefeated start.
To be clear, while this is only a few data points, the r-squared between these two data elements is over 50 percent, i.e., over half the variation in league-average HR/FB alone is explained just by the mean drag coefficient for the year. The chart is also incredibly blatant (one goes up, the other goes down), with the main thing ruining being, in part, 2025 - where the ball's coefficient of restitution changed in addition to its drag coefficient.