4-13-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
This offense is tough to watch against normal pitching but going up against Hunter Greene today – who finished 8th in Cy Young voting last season – is a whole different animal.
This team has shown a complete inability to hit anything so maybe facing one of the best pitchers in baseball turns things around?
Greene enters play today with a 1.31 ERA and 23 strikeouts through 20.2 innings pitched. He’s fresh off statistically the best start of his career as he went 8.2 shutout against the Giants allowing just 4 hits and 1 walk with 7 strikeouts in the match.
The Pirates and Greene are VERY familiar with each other, having faced off 7 times previously. And while Greene has a 3.00 ERA with 51 Ks over 36 innings pitched in those outings, he’s posted a 0-4 record in those games (as covered here, here and here).
He’s in a good spot though heading into today’s matchup. While Pirates fans are seeing green, it’s a lot of red in his metrics as he is among the best in MLB in chases, whiffs, strikeouts and walks while throwing one of the hardest fastballs among starting pitchers.
While previously struggling with control issues (career 9.3% walk rate prior to this year), he’s been much more locked in with just 3 free passes issued so far.
Greene is basically a two-pitch starter who looks to fill up the strike zone with his overpowering fastball that hits triple digits while dropping a high-80s slider down in the zone to mix speeds and change the batter’s eye line. He’ll mix in a splitter and a curve but they’ve become secondary to the top two offerings which comprise nearly 90% of his total pitches thrown.
Look for the fastballs up in the zone and stay locked in early for that hard heat and big breaking sliders that can drop out of the zone and get some BIG whiffs.
Focus on the fastball and just try to get a bit of offense going or else Cincinnati won’t be the only Red this fanbase will be seeing.
Steel City Pirates 