6-1-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
With the first two months of the season in the books, the Pirates are eager to cut their losses and look forward to the next chapter of the year. Can they continue their recent surge of offense to complement the strong pitching they’ve been running out lately? They will be facing Randy Vasquez in the finale today, who enters with a 3-4 record and a 3.58 ERA through 11 games this season.
The third-year starter, who came over to San Diego as part of the return for Juan Soto trade with the Yankees, likely hopes he can continue his May magic and avoid a June swoon.
Over the last month, Vasquez tossed 28 innings across 5 starts with 22 strikeouts to 8 walks and a 2.89 ERA on the month. Granted, that comes with an astonishing 92.9% strand rate so he’s either terrific under pressure, or he’s due for the pendulum to swing the other way.
His strong May began with his game against the Bucs (preview here) where he allowed just one run through 5 innings of work with 6 hits and 5 walks to only 3 strikeouts.
While he has a variety of pitches, Vasquez mainly works a fastball-heavy arsenal, tossing his low-90s cutter/sinker/4-seam combination make up ~60% of his total pitch mix, and he’s leaned on these offerings even more heavily as of late, averaging 68% usage over his last four games.
He’ll use the cutter and 4-seam primarily against lefties while adding in his curve and changeup to mix speeds and eye level. Lefties should key in on the cutter with its 31.4% usage as they are batting .333 and slugging .556 against the offering.
They have also effectively neutralized his changeup as opponents are posting a 1.100 OPS against the offering as Vasquez struggles to disguise the pitch, allowing opponents to easily pounce when it’s up in the zone.
Right-handed hitters have had more difficulty finding success against the Padre pitcher, batting .116 against his sinker (31.4%) and .183 against his sweeper (25.4%) but have also had success against his cutter (26.1%), batting .316 against the offering.
Despite the fastball-heavy usage, Vasquez doesn’t get high exit velocity numbers. Bucs bats will need to hold to the heat and try to flip some balls into outfield gaps. Stay on the cutter and be ready to do some damage.
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