7-10-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
The Pirates have not won (or lost, for that matter) 3 consecutive games in over three months when they notched successive victories from April 6-8. After scoring 20 combined runs over the past two games, do the bats still have some more in the tank to get another W on the board against the dastardly Brew Crew?
They’ll have their rematch with Tobias Myers, who made his major league debut earlier this season against the Pirates, where he pitched 5 innings allowing 1 run off 5 hits and 1 walks with 4 strikeouts. While the Pirates managed to snag a win behind 8 shutout frames courtesy of Bailey Falter, they’ll likely want to do a bit better against the rookie righty.
Myers was a 6th round pick by the Baltimore Orioles in 2016 who bounced around a number of clubs before finally breaking in with Milwaukee earlier this season. While he’s posted fairly pedestrian numbers in the minors (4.24 ERA through 620.1 innings pitched), he’s seen things click together since joining the Brewers organization.
After posting a strong 1.62 ERA with a 32.8% strikeout rate through 16.2 innings in AAA Nashville, Myers was recalled by the Brewers ahead of that April start in Pittsburgh and has posted a respectable 5-3 record, 3.52 ERA and 1.19 WHIP over 64 MLB innings.
He’s been a workhorse for the Brewers battered rotation, managing 5+ innings over each of his last 6 starts and allowing 3 or less runs in 5 of them – including a stretch last month where allowed just 2 runs over a 25.1 inning span for a 0.71 ERA – so the Pirates will need a plan of attack for bringing him down.
Myers has a 5-pitch mix, relying on his low-90s rising four seam fastball and high-80s cutter to set up hitters before tossing in his mid-80s slider and low-80s changeup, which have produced HUGE whiff rates for the rookie Myers at 33.3% and 42.2%, respectively. He also occasionally adds in the high-70s curve but it hasn’t been an effective pitch for him with location, execution or results so far this year.
Myers isn’t going to overpower hitters, focusing on a 4-seam/cutter/changeup approach against LHH and leaning 4-seam/slider more when facing RHH as both the slider and changeup typically break down below the zone resulting in some bad looking swinging strikes.
I mentioned Myers has the rising fastball as it has 35% less horizontal drop than the average fastball in MLB, leading to hitters swinging under the offering expecting the ball to fade lower in the zone. There’s enough tape on Myers now that Bucs batters should be aware of how the pitch moves and how to approach it.
Myers has some STARK splits in his MLB career so far as he has struggled both at home (4.97 ERA vs 2.56 away) and when facing LHH (.753 OPS compared to .468 against RHH).
Bucs bats need to attack the 4-seam and cutter, which combined have made up over 63% of his total pitch mix. The xBA against the cutter (.329) is the highest among his main offerings and his xSLG vs his 4-seam (.538) also ranks above (or below, depending on your perspective) his other pitches.
All of his home runs allowed have come against these offerings and the Pirates have shown a recent return of the Lumber Company, as the team is now 6th in the National League for home runs on the season and 1st in all of baseball since the start of July with 19 so far this month.
Attack the heat, spit on the low slider/changeup mix and drive a few more balls into the American Family Field seats.
Let’s Go Bucs!
Steel City Pirates 
Although he got some calls and at-’em balls, largely there was no answer for Myers, disappointing as any shutout will be. What a night-and-day turn the first two games of the series were.
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