Starter Spotlight: Looking For A Pallante-Cleansing Series Win

7-4-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

Happy Independence Day, Pirates fans! Hoping to continue some of the fireworks from last night, the Bucs will look to win the rubber match in their matchup today facing Andre Pallante.

Pallante enters play today with a 4-3 record, 4.50 ERA and 1.58 ERA over 38 innings thus far this season, joining the rotation in late-May after spending the first month pitching strictly in relief. 

He has performed significantly better since moving to the rotation, posting a 3.86 ERA over 28 frames starting compared to 6.30 in his 10 innings of relief.

In his 13 career appearances against the Pirates, they have all come out of the bullpen and resulted in a 5.14 ERA over 14 innings dating back to April 2022.

His arsenal consists of a fastball-heavy approach, leading with a mid-90s 4-seam and mid-90s sinker (which combine for 74% of his total pitches) and tossing in a high-80s slider and low-80s knuckle-curve to break up the velocity and movement as his secondaries.

The 4-seamer is mostly used against left-handed hitters middle-up while Pallante leans on the sinker when facing righties, working the pitch away from the hitters and hammering glove side.

His main secondary offering against rights has been the slider while when facing lefties, he leans on his nasty curve, which has generated a 40% whiff rate and an opponents batting average of .100.

In fact, despite only throwing the pitch 80 times thus far this season, Pallante has notched 10 of his 28 strikeouts via the curve.

Despite that, Pallante has not historically been a swing-and-miss arm and has relied on weak contact and ground balls to find success. His average exit velocity (86.1 MPH) ranks in the 93rd percentile in baseball while his barrel rate (3.4% – 94th percentile) and ground ball rate (60.2% – 97th percentile) are also in the elite tier.

Pallante has some strong reverse splits as right-handed hitters have nearly double the OPS against him (.995) as lefties (.510).

They also have been less prone to put the ball on the ground (21.3% ground ball rate vs 73.7% for LHH), likely due in part to seeing less sinkers.

Granted, it’s a small sample size influenced by a split reliever/starter stretch but even his career numbers (.235/.290/.337 for LHH and .322/.408/.451 for RHH) indicate that the struggles are legitimate.

Either way, it’s something to keep an eye on in the game today, especially as Cutch enters his annual hot weekend.

Let’s have more than just fireworks in the sky as we look to raise the Jolly Roger over the rival Red Birds!

Let’s Go Bucs!