6-3-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
The Pirates are entering a stretch of games against unfamiliar foes and facing some division mates for the first time this season over the next few weeks. Ya know, if you think you have a team that can compete, you don’t enter any series feeling like you’re completely going to get swept up in the undertow, if there is such a team though, it might be the Dodgers. They can pitch they can certainly hit, hell just for good measure they’re the best fielding team in the league too, now all they have to do is beat Jared Jones, Paul Skenes and Bailey Falter.
See what I mean? It’s hard to ever truly feel like any series is without hope when for the most part you’re tossing a horse at them, even if it’s against one of theirs.
Nobody said it would be easy…
Lets go!
1. Henry Davis is Back
Before I start here, Ethan Smith had some good thoughts on Henry coming back, so if you just want to see the numbers and what it means where, a deeper dive, have at it.
I’m going to focus more on how I think he might be used early on here. For instance, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him sit tomorrow night against Tyler Glasnow and then start the Wednesday game against James Paxton. Thursday being a night game, all bets are off.
This was a quick recall, which really speaks to more of a confidence thing than a technical application of a swing change. Truthfully, that’s kinda all he needed. The kid had himself tied into knots up here and it rendered him ineffective against any form of attack.
It won’t be the last time he struggles at this level, but hopefully he now knows some tricks for clapping his hands in his own face to wake up the hitter inside. This kid pressures himself far more than any manager could, and at some point, that “edge” is going to have to get smoothed into a much less blunt corner for him. He’s gotta stop taking momentary failure so hard, and more than anything, he needs to stop believing he can “try hard” his way into being the hero.
Henry is a natural leader, but this year, it would do him a world of good to join the cast as opposed to trying to direct it. If anything about Henry is real, it’s the bat and the leadership qualities. Everything else needs work, and time to develop. Here’s hoping Henry brings the one thing we think we know we have here, the stick.
2. Quietly As Always, Bryan Reynolds has Really Improved Defensively
Every time people try to write the book on Bryan Reynolds, he shows up with a middle finger and does what most people didn’t think he could do. Remember knowing he’d never hit 25 homeruns? I do.
This off season he had heard enough about his arm strength in the outfield and decided to do something about it. Training all offseason to make stronger throws, executed with better technique. Getting better routes to balls to give himself more opportunities to pick off would be doublers. It wasn’t discussed or highlighted, in fact many were shocked to see the team make plans early on to put him in right field, expressly because of those “known issues” and all he’s done is bounce all over the outfield, play lock down defense everywhere and pick up 7 assists in the first 59 games he’s played in 2024.
It’s been really something to see. He’s getting a bit of a rep too, just yesterday against the Jays he cut off a ball that had no business of being a single, and would have taken a perfect throw to nab the runner at second, and the runner chose to retreat and take his single. Beautiful.
The Pirates aren’t a complete team, but these are improvements you don’t expect to see a 29 year old make. Defensive ability is usually one of those things that start to decline first, certainly don’t improve, so it’s to be celebrated really that he’s shown so much more out there. Lord knows they need a steadying force in the Outfield, he’s really the only one you know will be there every game.
I also wanted to touch on the report from Kevin Gorman from the Trib that he was taking some reps at 1B. I’m certainly not disputing that, Kevin is a great reporter, but I really think most of you only read the headline. I don’t see this as something they’re trying to introduce this year, but I could see it as an interesting answer to a big Pirates problem heading into 2025. If this is something they pursue it could solve 1B and allow the team to go after a more affordable outfielder as opposed to try to swim in the shallow first base market. I wish I felt they had more coming internally for the outfield, because I typically don’t like removing a strength from one area only to create a weakness where it once was, but I can’t deny an internal 1B solution might be the best one they can make.
Whatever challenge Bryan wants to go after, good chance he achieves it so….
Hurry, someone tell him he can’t hit left handed!
3. Why is Jose Hernandez on This Roster?
Jose Hernandez was recalled on May 23rd. He pitched 2/3 of an inning and gave up an earned run.
He hasn’t done a blessed thing since. He’s had a couple stints now with the Pirates this season and he’s gotten into 7 games, 5.1 innings, a 3.38 ERA. He’s one of two lefty relievers on the active roster.
The GM has called him up twice now and twice now, he’s scarcely been used, even while the coach actively complains about his bullpen being taxed. Even when his other lefty is struggling mightily, even while the team has had two big lead opportunities where you might want to toss a guy the coach isn’t sure about to chew on some throw away innings.
So, I have to ask, what the hell is Jose Hernandez doing here? The coach clearly doesn’t feel the same about using him as the GM seems to think he should.
Honestly, they’re acting more this year like he’s a Rule 5 pick than they did last year when he actually was and they trusted him with 50.2 innings and delivered a 4.97 ERA. I mean early on this year, they even let him pick up a save, he looked poised to be not only used but relied on.
If something happened, I missed it.
He’s certainly struggled less than Kyle Nicolas, he’s been given 13 games and delivered a 6.00 ERA. Carmen Mlodzinski keeps getting shots, but he’s at 6 games now and has an 8.31 ERA.
Point is, what am I missing about Hernandez that has him the proverbial red headed step child? (No offense Josh Booth)
I don’t get it. Shelton said after the game that Jose hadn’t gone in 9 days, well, who the hell made that the case? You had two blowouts, one of which was part of a double header, I mean, isn’t that kinda on you?
This feels like a GM and coach simply not agreeing on a player, I’ll just leave it here.
You can’t have a bullpen with 2 guys you want to use, 2 guys you want to be good, one guy you paid to be good but hasn’t been, 1 guy you only pitch once a week and a young lefty who is just rotting. Make it make sense, because a lot of people love to crow about how much they think Shelton is in over his head with nothing to back it up but their own ire, this is physical evidence of wasting resources and mis-deploying talent.
4. Jared Jones Will Be Challenged
The kid has already set record after record here in Pittsburgh. The very early morning portion of his first season in MLB, the Rookie has largely had his way with the league.
3-5 in 11 games with 63 IP, 70 Ks and an outstanding 1.011 WHIP.
He’s for real, he’s here, and he’s just about to start seeing what 2 months in the Majors does to opposition scouting reports.
The thing to look to now is how he and the Pirates navigate the rest of his rookie campaign. First, how the Pirates will manage his innings and in part, how his continued effectiveness might influence some of that plan.
His average velocity hasn’t dropped on his fastball, but his peak offering, that 100-101 on the gun he was starting seemingly every game with, that looks to be just about gone for the year. It’s been replaced by a heavy 98-99 MPH offering with all the same movement, he’s just understandably got a bit less to give here at the beginning of June than he did in April.
The stuff plays plenty good still, but players will make adjustments and I think we’ll see as Jones evolves he’ll have to start using his curve ball or changeup to keep hitters a bit more off balance.
Yasmani Grandal has almost exclusively called sliders and fastballs, but when he starts facing some of these teams a couple times, or they’ve all had enough tape on him, he’ll need to have a bit more velocity change in his back pocket, especially against lefties.
I still believe that the Pirates would like to keep Jones as close to 150 innings as they possibly can. I also believe there is some play in that, and there almost has to be as he sits here with 63.1 innings already on the books. Think about it this way, if he has another very similar showing in June and July, he’ll be sitting at 126.2, in other words he’d enter August with about 25 innings left on the theoretical bucket.
His effectiveness might wain before the Pirates would be forced to pull a shoving pitcher out of a rotation for his health. What I’m saying here is, if he isn’t suffering any loss of “stuff”, they might well decide 150 was a nice idea and they can push it a bit, but you’re just not going to see 200.
There still needs to be some sort of plan to help minimize what they do and this part of the season makes as much sense as any.
Little things they can do, but you have to have a functioning bullpen to do it.
You can start pulling him after 5, hell if your team jumps out and scores a bunch of runs, pull him after 4. No matter how many math tricks you pull off, you’ll always come up with one reality, if this kid is to pitch playoff games this year, this team will have had to ignore innings restrictions. Right or wrong.
And all of that supposes he manages to keep doing a reasonable facsimile of what he’s been. I don’t doubt the talent, I just observe history and pay attention to how pitchers reaching new heights of innings counts tend to degrade at least a little.
I believe in this kid, love the stuff, the head is absolutely locked in. He’s already conquered some hurdles many of them fail with, like learning how to get outs when you don’t have all your best stuff. Featuring your second pitch because the opposition was waiting for what you really want to throw.
He’s jumped every hurdle. The one I’m most worried about is physiology. He’s too important to expect the team to throw caution to the wind, but he’s just as important to any improbable run they might have in the cards right now. In many ways, this is more interesting than how they handle Paul Skenes.
5. Need a Winning Streak
This team hasn’t had a 3 game winning streak since May 6th. Even when they started out 9=2, they had exactly 1 3 game winning streak culminating on April 8th.
It’s actually remarkable how very much so this team has alternated wins and losses game to game as the season has rolled along.
Losses on the other hand, they’ve had a 6 and 3, 3 game stretches. It’s time for the counter balance, and as we enter the 5th complete run through the rotation since Paul Skenes was summoned, its fair to say we should expect this rotation to put this club in position to do that more often.
Sometimes you need short term goals, instead of staring at the Wild Card as a goal, with it’s ambiguous finish line for success, focus on getting back to winning series. manage to do so. Manage as if that rubber match matters. Start learning how to win best of match ups as a team. Put urgency on earning that sweep. Build expectation into taking 2 of 3 and winning the series.
Listen, I’m not saying they’re so clueless as to not want to win more than 1 or 2 in a row. Of course they do, but that’s what it’s going to take.
Another thing I think has played into this, this team simply struggles to hit right handed pitching. It’s brutal when you look at splits for this offense and unfortunately for them, right handed pitching is still far more common than left handed pitching.
I mean, check this out.
| Pirates Hitters | LHP | RHP | Overall | League Rank |
| OPS | .713 | .633 | .658 | 27 |
| AVG | .242 | .223 | .229 | 25 |
| HR | 21 | 33 | 54 | 20 |
| 2B | 31 | 55 | 86 | 23 |
| BB | 62 | 138 | 200 | 8 |
| SO | 183 | 381 | 564 | 27 |
| AB | 632 | 1388 | 2020 | 12 |
| OBP | .313 | .296 | .301 | 25 |
This team has the success they have in large part because they are 4th in MLB for how many ABs they’ve taken against left handed pitching, and by in large they’re near the top of the league against them.
That shouldn’t surprise anyone, they have more right handed bats, and the lefty’s by in large haven’t hit. Cruz, Tellez, Suwinski and even Reynolds hitting left handed have been scuffling. That’s an impossible thing to recover from. I mean look how many at bats they have against righties. More than double.
You can’t have it in this game. They need left handed production or any streak is always going to be short lived. I mean, take the winning streak aspect out of this all together, just look at the numbers and see how much this issue drags down this offense.
Take Oneil Cruz out of the lineup and this club has arguably the leagues second or third best offense against left handed pitching.
They have got to get more balance, or they need some righties to start picking up the slack for their lefty brethren.
Until that improves, 3 game streaks might be the ceiling.
Get well Jack! Swing for homeruns not highlight reels Oneil! Bryan, we get it, you’re a natural righty, but you got paid for the other side. Rowdy, don’t toy with us, either just don’t hit or hit, please.
Steel City Pirates 