5-5-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
As the losing streak stretches to four games, the fan morale has never been lower. After entering this season with the team expressing confidence that they would be in playoff contention, there have been nothing but ineffective offense and inconsistent defense.
Nevertheless, the Pirates head west to face division rival St. Louis Cardinals for a 3-game set with Miles Mikolas on the bump for game 1.
The Cardinals longest tenured member of their rotation, Mikolas is in his 7th season playing for St. Louis and enters today with a 4.66 ERA over his first 6 starts, pitching 29 innings with 17 strikeouts to 9 walks – but the ERA is inflated by one outing (8 earned runs in 2.2 innings) as he is currently riding an 11.1 inning scoreless streak over his last two starts.
Miles Mikolas is 5-6 with an ERA of 2.90 and 96 strikeouts in 23 appearances versus the Pirates in his career, most recently tossing 6 innings of 5-hit, 2-run ball on July 3rd last year and I have covered him previously – but there is still new things to review with a new season underway.
His inability to miss bats places him in the 1st percentile in MLB and nothing else that he does places him on any top tier for starting pitchers.
The wily, mustached veteran Mikolas relies on a varied pitch mix, changing speed and location to keep hitters off balance and get the balls hit in play right to the fielders.
His arsenal currently consists of a low-90s 4-seam/sinker, a slider and changeup both in the mid-80s, a low-80s sweeper and a curve that drops in around 75 MPH.
None of his pitches have been overpowering batters but the placement and movement have become a problem – specifically, his non-fastballs have been a struggle for opposing hitters to barrel up.
Against his fastballs, lefties are hitting .450 and slugging.550 while righties are batting .240 and slugging .280 with expected values even higher at .312 xBA and .482 xSLG, respectively.
Hitters should try to lay off breaking balls – against which opponents are batting just .172 thus far this season.
Opponents have a .280 BAA first time through against Mikolas that drops to .184 second time through.
Nothing in his line would indicate realistic sustainable success and, given he frequently throws both his 4-seam and sinker up in the zone, hitters should key in on those offerings today and attack in-zone early on in the game.
He’s also not really a ground-ball pitcher (37% rate this year and 44.3% career mark) as he allows hard contact that is frequently in the air but, surprisingly, has thus far managed to keep the ball in the park.
Maybe the losing streak ends today and that might require some big hits from the big bats who need put some miles on the ball.
Steel City Pirates 