Starter Spotlight: Ambush Aaron

9-26-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

Final home game of the season today with the Bucs sparring once more with Aaron Civale.

The Pirates have faced Civale twice this season – once while he was still with the Rays on June 23rd and once only a few weeks later on July 11th, following a trade to the Brewers. In those two games, Civale combined for 11.1 innings, 9 hits, 2 runs, 3 walks and 9 strikeouts.

Entering with 4.53 ERA between Tampa and Milwaukee, Civale has sub-par overall peripherals who doesn’t have great “stuff” but grinds through starts even with a bottom ten WHIP among all qualified starting pitchers.

Civale utilizes a diverse pitch mix – low-90s cutter and sinker, low-80s curve and sweeper with a mid-90s 4-seam – though, he also tosses occasional splitters and sliders as well but so infrequently that they aren’t worth dissecting.

Looking at the main five offerings, he tends to lean heavily on the cutter/curve against LHH while pushing the sinker/sweeper combo when facing righties. That said, none of his pitches rank favorably as all have an oBA of .240+ and oSLG of .410 or higher.

Civale works up in the zone with the hard stuff – including the sinker, surprisingly – while dropping the breaking stuff down as he works to attack the edges, often hanging his pitches as a result. 

More glaringly, he has some stark home/away splits with a 3.35 ERA when he pitches first and a 6.34 ERA when he toes the rubber in the bottom of the frames.

Pirates hitters need to be on the attack today, bearing down on the high heat and looking to pull the offspeed stuff down and break through with some big hits today. He bested the Bucs twice before but no time like today to turn things around.

Let’s Go Bucs!