(5/21) MLB | The Daily Dinger Report — Thursday Dingers
Written by: Varun Sharma
Last Update: Thu May 21, 2026, 3:14 pm ET
Read Time: 4 minutes
mlb
The weekend's almost here and it's not just any weekend. It's Memorial Day weekend so hopefully we get some of the good baseballs out there on the diamond. We've got a small slate of MLB games tonight, but I've got two hitters locked in for the evening slate.
Let's jump right into it.
The cheat sheet makes it a lot easier when I run through the stats I'm looking at and as always, hit me up on X if you've got more questions.
Dinger Cheat Sheet
- BA — Batting Average
- oBA — Opponent Batting Average
- xBA — Expected BA
- SLG — Slugging Percentage
- ISO — Isolated Power
- wOBA — Weighted On-Base Average
- HH% — Hard Hit Rate
- BRL% — Barrel Rate
- HR/9 — Home Runs per 9 innings
- XBH — Extra Base Hit
- RBI — Runs Batted In
Dinger Counter: 1-4; -1.1 units
Today's Dingers
Mike Trout Home Run (+320) | Lucky Rebel
Trout started the season on fire. He had 10 home runs through the first 30 games of the year, 21 RBI and he was hitting with power. May began and so did a little bit of a slump for Trout. He's batting .203 this month, with a .328 SLG and just 2 home runs.
Trout's played 18 games this month, he's got just 4 XBH and like I said he's just been in a slump. He's coming off a 0/3 night against the Athletics last night and tonight he matches up with Luis Severino.
Trout's hitting 0.429 in 7 plate appearances against Severino, he's got 1 home run and 3 strikeouts. The thing about Severino is he relies heavily on speed. Nearly 90% of his pitches against right handed bats are some variation of fastball and that's where Trout thrives.
Trout's hitting .368 against sinkers and .400 against cutters. He's just below .250 against 4-seam fastballs but his power goes through the roof against fastball heavy pitchers. Winds are blowing out toward center field at almost 9 mph and with Trout's raw power, all he needs to do is make contact.
Aaron Judge Home Run (+250) | Lucky Rebel
Let's cap this small slate off with a little more chalk. Aaron Judge has 16 home runs this year but hasn't hit one in 10 days now. The last time Judge hit a home run it was in Milwaukee on the 10th of this month.
Judge has gone 1/11 so far in this divisional series with the Blue Jays and today's matchup is probably the softest of them all. The Blue Jays are going with an opener tonight but it will be Braydon Fisher coming in after to play multiple innings.
Judge is 1/2 against Fisher in his career but it's the pitch mix matchup that stands out. Fisher uses a variety of pitches, but all pitches Judge hits for power. Six of his last 8 batted balls have also gone at least 99 mph, but none have resulted in a home run.
Judge is so due.
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