9-16-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
Entering the final two weeks of the season, the Pirates face off against division-rival Cardinals and a starter who has had their number this season in Andre Pallante.
In his previous two outings against the Bucs this season, Pallante went 7 innings of 4-hit, 1-run ball on July 4th and then posted a 6-inning, 3-hit, 1-run game on July 22nd so it’s been a struggle for the Pirates but hopefully they have figured out how to take down Andre this time around.
As we covered previously in both the first and second outings by Pallante, he isn’t a strikeout arm and mostly relies on avoiding barrels and generating ground balls for success.
And he does each of those at an elite level, as his 3.8% barrel rate is lowest among pitchers with at least 400 plate appearances against and his 61.3% ground ball rate is behind only Framber Valdez for best in baseball.
He induced 25 ground balls combined in the previous two starts against the Pirates combined to 11 total fly balls so it will be critical for the Bucs to reverse course on this trend.
Pallante is throwing a mid-90s 4-seam about half the time while adding in a mid-90s sinker and high-80s slider with a low-80s knuckle-curve that he mostly mixes in against lefties. All of these offerings generate above average ground ball rates and his 4-seam surprisingly has a 72.4% mark with an average launch angle of -5.
There’s no two ways about it that the Pirates will see a heavy dosage of fastballs but they need to find ways to elevate these pitches to see success against Pallante. The slider has been more hittable but is used less often and the curve has been wrecking lefties in general.
Look for the heat and find ways to get the barrel to the ball to beat up Pallante.
Let’s Go Bucs!
Steel City Pirates 