8-7-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
Late night last night as the water-logged offense couldn’t get rolling against Padres pitching. Shower, dry off and try to turn the page as the Pirates will face Michael King in today’s affair.
Coming over from the Yankees in the off-season trade which sent Juan Soto to the Bronx, King enters play today with a 3.26 ERA through 124.1 innings pitched – by far his biggest workload of his professional career in his first year in San Diego.
Outside of a slightly elevated walk rate, King doesn’t do any one thing poorly. He’s striking out batters at a solid 28% clip, allows just over 1 home run per 9 innings and induces weak contact at an ELITE level.
Looking at his arsenal, King works with a four-pitch mix that is fairly even in distribution between a low-90s sinker, a mid-90s four-seam fastball, a low-80s sweeper/slider and, his best pitch, a high-80s changeup – which ranks among the best in baseball and is his main pitch dispatched against left handed hitters.
This is a BIG reason for the low average exit velocity of 85.7 MPH – which ranks only behind Braves starters Max Fried (85.5) and Chris Sale (85.6) among qualified starting pitchers.
The average exit velocity against King’s changeup: 80.7
He typically runs the changeup down and in against those lefty batters so Bucs batters will want to avoid that and try to stay on the heat. He’ll work the 4-seam up in the zone and the sinker low but can hang occasionally and become a BIG target.
The expected slugging for both of the fastballs is above the actual number so key in on these and lay off the junk down.
King is almost certainly going to present a problem for the Pirates today after the water-logged outing last night.
Practice patient at-bats.
Take walks.
Drive the heat.
Let’s Go Bucs!
Steel City Pirates 