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There were better pitchers than Mackenzie Gore through the first three months of the season, but there weren't many.

At the beginning of July, he ranked 25th in the majors in ERA among qualifiers, but was quite a bit better by most other measures. He was fourth in the majors in strikeout rate and fifth in K-BB%; he was sixth in SIERA and 10th in FIP; and he had three different pitches with a whiff rate more than 10% higher than the league average, the only pitcher in baseball that was true for. Sure, he has the occasional bout of wildness and would give up a few too many homers, but those weren't enough to sink the whole profile. The breakout was happening, and he was a totally uncontroversial All-Star selection.

It's all gone wrong for him since then, and we just have to hope Tuesday's start against the Athletics was the bottom. Gore was tagged for eight runs on 12 hits in three innings of work, and he finished the start without recording a strikeout for the first time in his MLB career. It was the kind of start that was so bad, you expect there to be some kind of explanation offered afterwards – either he was hurt or he was tipping his pitches. Something.

Unfortunately, Gore didn't really have any answers. In talking to reporters after the game, Gore acknowledged that this start might have been more befuddling than most where he struggles, because he didn't struggle in the way he typically does.

"We didn't walk anybody tonight, which is something that typically, when I pitch bad, that's what happens," he said, via the Washington Post's Spencer Nusbaum. "Just tonight it was just they hit it. So, yeah, we got to make some adjustments."

Of course, it's not just a one-start aberration for Gore at this point. He finished July with a 6.75 ERA and has just one quality start in his past six tries. And the strikeouts just haven't been there for him at all – he has 19 in his past 27 innings, compared to 16 walks. This after, again, he had the fifth-highest strikeout rate in baseball to that point.

If you're looking for reasons to be optimistic, there's this: We've been here before. Almost exactly a year ago, in fact. Gore struggled to the tune of a 7.62 ERA in July and had a six-start stretch across July and his first two starts in August, where he had just 18 strikeouts to 18 walks over 26 innings. He would go on to have one more poor start, but from Aug. 23 on, he had quality starts in six of his final seven starts, with a 1.55 ERA and 45 strikeouts to 11 walks in 40.2 innings of work to close out the season.

But nobody feels like being optimistic right now. I get that. And, even if Gore does turn it around over the next two or so months, that's not really going to answer the larger question of, Why does this keep happening with him? When you dig into the pitch-level data, we don't see a big drop in velocity from Gore, which would typically be the first place we look. His secondaries – besides his changeup, really – lost a lot of effectiveness when it comes to generating whiffs in July, but his spin rates and movement profiles mostly look the same as they always do. Maybe there's an inch of movement difference between his early-season numbers and now, but nothing drastic enough to explain why he's gone from a potential Cy Young candidate to one of the worst pitchers in baseball. 

It might be as simple as this: Gore's got a kinda funky delivery, with a high leg kick that transitions into a slide down the mound, and he famously had trouble repeating it as a prospect. It might be as simple as Gore struggling to repeat his tricky mechanics consistently enough. It might be as simple as … he's not pitching well right now. 

But Gore has been a professional pitcher for nine seasons and a big-leaguer for four, and if he hasn't figured that out yet, is it ever going to happen for him? Possibly. Progress is rarely linear, as Gore has made a point of reminding us over and over throughout his career. Maybe the light will switch on for him, he'll shave down the rough edges, and emerge as the ace we know he can be.

But we thought that's what was happening for three months to open the season, and he's completely fallen apart during the dog days of summer yet again. At this point, I think we probably just have to take Gore at face value here: He's an incredibly talented pitcher, but remains too much of an unfinished product to really buy into. I wouldn't drop him right now, but you can't start him either. You just have to stash him on your bench and hope he turns it around like he did a year ago. 

Here's what else you need to know about from Tuesday's action around MLB: 

Wednesday waiver-wire targets

Zebby Matthews, SP, Twins (47%) – Now that's what we've been hoping to see from Matthews. He went five innings against a solid Tigers lineup and limited them to just one run on five hits and one walk, while striking out six. He continued to sit around 96 mph with his four-seamer while touching 98, and he generated 12 swinging strikes, seven of them on his very good slider. Matthews pitched in the zone a bit less often than usual – 50% zone rate when he's usually around 55% – and that might be one of the keys for him, as he's typically so focused on avoiding walks that he'll end up leaving too many pitches over the heart of the plate. It took someone like George Kirby a while to find that balance, and that's not a bad comp for Matthews, even if he's unlikely to ever be quite as good as Kirby. But there's real upside here with a pitcher sporting a strikeout rate near 30% and a walk rate around 6% if he can just avoid getting hit too hard. I believe in the talent, so I'll take this as a step in the right direction. 

Luke Keaschall, 2B, Twins (39%) – Optimism in Twinsland! Okay, Twins fans aren't actually feeling much optimism right now, but I still think this is a pretty talented squad that could turn things around more quickly than you might think, and Matthews and Keaschall are a big part of why. Keaschall made his long-awaited return from a fractured forearm and looked like he never left, going 2 for 4, including a homer in his first at-bat back. He even attempted a steal – unsuccessfully, but still, we like the enthusiasm from a guy who has been running like mad everywhere he has played when healthy this season. Keaschall's upside could be something like a better Maikel Garcia, and I'm excited to watch him get the chance to play every day down the stretch. He should be rostered in all categories leagues for the stolen base upside alone, but he has the all-around skill set to be a must-roster Fantasy option in every league if he clicks. 

Jakob Marsee, OF, Marlins (17%) – It's hard for a first taste of the majors to go any better than it has for Marsee so far. Through his first five games, Marsee has reached base 11 times, six via hit, with five of them going for extra bases, including his first career big-league homer Tuesday against the Astros. He's also walked five times and has a minuscule (6.1%) chase rate and whiff rate (20.0%). That's what Marsee was known for in the minors – well, that, and making pitchers' lives miserable when he gets on base – and he hasn't looked at all overmatched so far in the majors. Maybe that won't continue, but when a guy with a career .801 OPS in Triple-A and 54 steals in 120 games gets off to this kind of start, you kind of just need to buy in and see what happens. 

Daulton Varsho, OF, Blue Jays (30%) – The kind of mid-career power breakout we're seeing from Varsho would have been unexpected even if he wasn't coming off offseason shoulder surgery. That he's continued to crush the ball even after missing two months with a hamstring injury just defies all explanation. But Varsho hit two more homers Tuesday, including a 467-foot bomb that was the longest of his career. He's up to 11 homers in just 28 games, and it might not be a fluke – he's combining his long-standing ability to lift the ball to the pull side with by far the best quality of contact metrics of his career. Yeah, he's had to trade some strikeouts to get there, and his batting average is likely to suffer. But with Varsho hitting the ball like this, it may not matter, at least in categories and Roto leagues.