9-17-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
Old man Lance Lynn has tormented the Pirates over the years despite his below average stats and stuff. That has continued in his return to the Red Birds this year as he started the game against the Pirates on 6/13 where the Cardinals won 4-3, and on 7/23, he pitched 5 shutout frames to lead St. Louis to victory over Pittsburgh again by a 2-1 final score.
Coming back from a knee injury which cost him more than a month of play this season, the 37-year old Lynn enters play today with a 6-4 record on the year and a 3.96 ERA over 111.1 innings of work.
His strikeout and walk rates are among the worst of his career as his velocity has continued to tick down on his pitches. And yet, he eats innings, gets outs and does so without allowing much damage.
We mentioned ahead of the previous two matchups (see here and here) that Lynn had previously struggled with the long-ball, leading all of baseball in home runs allowed with 44 and a HR/9 rate of 2.16 and HR/FB of 19%.
While he has managed to stabilize both of those metrics with a 1.21 HR/9 and 10.9% HR/FB rate, he still allows a good amount of hard contact and a lot of it comes in the air.
His xERA of 4.85 is nearly a full run higher than his actual ERA. Additionally, his ground ball rate of 36.7% is in the bottom 20 in baseball while his 10.1% barrel rate ranks 5th worst among qualified pitchers, indicating his face-value numbers may be more propped up by luck than talent.
Lynn still pushes in his chips with a fastball-heavy arsenal, leaning on a low-90s 4-seam/sinker and a high-80s cutter that make up over 75% of his total pitches thrown.
He mixes the pitches evenly against opposing hitters regardless of lefty/righty splits – though, he will mix in a mid-80s changeup down and in against left-handed hitters.
His sinker and cutter have generated the worst results for Lynn with oBA of .289 and .316, respectively, but all of his fastballs have been hit hard with xSLG of .430+ for each.
Bucs batters should look for elevated heaters and drive them hard. There’s some pop missing from the box scores lately and, facing Lynn today, these hitters should bring out the lumber and find some seats.
Let’s Go Bucs!
Steel City Pirates 