Starter Spotlight: The Great Gilded Gilbert

8-16-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

Heading back home after a horrendous road trip, the Pirates will host the Seattle Mariners, who themselves were just swept by the Detroit Tigers. Their offense is inconsistent but their starting pitching has been the best in baseball, posting a rotational ERA of 3.23 and fWAR of 13.7 – which both lead MLB.

Pirates will face off against one of those rotational stalwarts today as Logan Gilbert will take the ball to open this series, entering with a 2.91 ERA (7th best in MLB), 0.87 WHIP (tops in baseball) with 149 strikeouts to just 27 walks in 154.2 innings pitched this year.

The 2024 All Star features versatile mix of pitches, utilizing a high-80s slider and mid-90s 4-seam as his main offerings while adding a low-90s cutter, a low-80s curve and, perhaps his best pitch, a mid-80s splitter which has been nearly unhittable this year with opponents batting a paltry .097 against it and nearly 50% whiff rate.

Gilbert is going to fill up the zone, mix speeds and wrack up strikeouts. Expect a heavy dose of the fastball/slider combo with the heat up and breaking ball down.

Both the 4-seam and cutter have both higher expected batting average and slugging percentage than results have dictated thus far. Target those pitches elevated and find some gaps in the outfield.

Team has been in a funk but every day is a great day to start over. Start this series with a W for the home crowd.

Let’s Go Bucs!