Starter Spotlight: Meetup with Mikolas

6-11-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

Following a successful home stand, the Pirates head west for their first series against division rival St. Lous Cardinals. Starting for the Red Birds will be veteran Miles Mikolas, who is currently mired in the worst start of his major league career.

The two-time All Star Mikolas is currently 4-6 with a 5.32 ERA in 71 innings with 53 strikeouts and 14 walks. He hasn’t made a single start this season without allowing a run and has surrendered 3+ runs in 8 of his 13 games. Home runs have especially plagued him as he’s allowed 12 long balls thus far this year – tied for 7th most among all starting pitchers.

Mikolas has a decent mix of pitches which he uses with nearly even frequency at the top: a mid-80s slider, a low-90s sinker and low-90s fastball with a mid-70s curve and mid-80s changeup as his lesser-used secondary offerings. The focus should be on those main three of sinker, slider and fastball as they make up nearly 3/4 of his pitch usage.

He has been more effective with the sinker this year over last year, dropping the wOBA from .350 to .243. On the other hand, his slider has gone in the other direction as it had an oSLG of .375 in 2023 and has been CRUSHED with an oSLG of .620 thus far this season.

While he doesn’t rack up a ton of Ks, Mikolas will fill up the strike zone as his walk rate (4.7%) is among the best in baseball. Unfortunately for him, his whiff rate is the absolute WORST as hitters swing and miss at a 16.5% rate. No qualified starting pitcher in baseball avoids bats as infrequently as Mikolas this year.

Pirates hitters need to look to jump on Mikolas early if they get their pitch. He has a 72.1% first pitch strike rate – but when he gets behind in counts, opposing hitters have a .924 OPS after an 1-0 count and 1.278 after the count goes 2-0. His sinker is his only plus pitch currently as all of his other pitches have opponents batting .290 or higher against them.

Chance to get out ahead of a division rival early in the series and take advantage of a struggling starter.

#LetsGoBucs