8-3-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
From crushing defeat to epic comeback to frustrating defeat again, Pirates will look to avoid losing another series to Arizona today. With Mitch Keller on the bump, you feel pretty good about your chances facing southpaw Jordan Montgomery.
A spring training signing for Arizona, Montgomery had an excellent season split between the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers, posting a 3.20 ERA across 188.2 regular season innings before improving further with a 2.90 ERA in 31 postseason frames.
Unfortunately, that run of success hasn’t translated in his move to the desert as Montgomery currently holds a 6.51 ERA in his first 74.2 innings this season. He has allowed 4 of more runs in 6 of his 15 starts this year and has posted an ERA above 7 in each of the past three months.
Among pitchers with at least 50 plate appearances against, Montgomery’s changeup ranks 7th worst with both his curve and his sinker ranking as the 6th worst according to run value. In fact, his overall pitching run value of -20 is the WORST in all of MLB.
That said, there are still some things Montgomery does well as he elicits a well above average chase rate while avoiding barrels at an equally excellent rate.
Looking at his arsenal, Montgomery has the aforementioned low-90s sinker/4-seam, high-70s curve and low-80s changeup. He typically works low in the zone but climbs the ladder and runs the fastball high on occasion.
As you could probably surmise, this pitch arsenal have all fared poorly in both the face value and expected metrics but the changeup has been by far the LEAST effective, generating 4 of the 9 home runs surrendered in just 43 batted balls, leading to an oSLG of .604.
His sinker has also been hit hard and often with the highest xBA (.341) and highest wOBA (.436) with the lowest whiff rate (13.4%).
Right handed hitters have especially been able to pummel Montgomery, posting a .339/.390/.545 slash line over 283 plate appearances this season against the veteran southpaw.
Stay within your zone against Montgomery. He only succeeds when he gets chases and many members of this team have a good feel for what is or isn’t a strike.
Pick a pitch, pick a spot and punch Montgomery. Get Mitch some early run support and even up the series.
Let’s Go Bucs!
Steel City Pirates 