5-25-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
Heading into the final game of the homestead with a shot at taking 3 of 4 from the rival Brewers, the Pirates have been riding high on some late-game heroics.
While they need to find a way to break-through against starting pitchers, runs may be tough to find today as they are facing Milwaukee’s 12th ranked prospect, Logan Henderson, who has been nearly untouchable in his first three MLB starts as he is 3-0 in those games, pitching 16 innings with 9 hits, 4 walks and 23 strikeouts in that stretch.
Henderson was a 4th round pick for the Brewers in 2021 out of a junior college in Texas and almost had his career derailed as he went down with an elbow surgery in 2022 after pitching just 13.2 innings.
He returned in late 2023 and, after a slight delay to 2024 due to an oblique strain, began his ascension as he sprinted through the season, spending the last 6 games at AAA with the Nashville Sound.
The 23-year old righty has benefitted from the dearth of injuries ailing the Brew Crew rotation but has made the most of his time with the club and has certainly earned several more turns.
After allowing 5 runs off 6 hits in his first minor league start this season, Henderson has allowed 4 or less hits and 2 or less runs in each of his 8 starts since between the minors and majors with a combined 2.15 ERA over 46 total innings this year.
Henderson has a 5-pitch mix but mostly uses a low-90s 4-seam with ride up in the zone and a low-80s changeup the cuts down to the glove-side.
He technically also has a high-80s cutter that he’ll add in against lefties with a low-90s sinker and low-80s slider when facing righties but the fastball/changeup combo has comprised of 86.5% of his total pitches thrown in the majors this season so those should be the focus today.
His throwing motion creates a whip-like snap to the pitch where the fastball appears to attack the hitter quicker than expected while the changeup comes in almost surprisingly slow, catching hitters in between.
This is a big reason why hitters are batting just .174 against his fastball and an even worse .136 on the changeup.
It’s still a small sample size, sure, but with hitters whiffing at a 32%+ clip on each of these offerings, it will be about watching for the spin (horizontal is changeup, vertical is fastball) but, if not, picking a pitch and quadrant of the zone, thinking positive and hoping to run into one.
Because, with Logan, hitting begins where your imagination ends – or something like that.
Steel City Pirates 