6-3-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
Back home in Pittsburgh after a solid road trip as the Pirates welcome the Astros and veteran starter Lance McCullers Jr., who is looking to get back to normal after missing more than two full seasons.
Injuries have plagued the Houston starter who had Tommy John Surgery in 2018 – which cost him the entire 2019 campaign – but had multiple setbacks after a right flexor strain suffered in 2022 delayed the start to his season and eventually resulted in needing surgery to repair the following summer.
As a result, McCullers has pitched just 66 regular season innings since the start of 2022 and enters play today with a 5.89 ERA over his first 5 games started this season – though most of that damage came in 0.1 innings of work against the Reds on May 10, where he allowed 7 earned runs off 3 hits, 3 walks and a hit batter.
Over his last full season of work in 2021, McCullers posted a 13-5 record with a 3.16 ERA en route to a 7th place finish in the Cy Young Award voting.
McCullers has historically been a ground-ball specialist, peaking at a 61.3% in 2017, but has retooled his pitch mix as he has switched from a primary sinker/slider/curve mix in 2021 to a more diverse arsenal so far in 2025.
In addition, McCullers has lowered his arm angle from 31 degrees in ‘21 to 26 degrees this season, creating a cutting movement that drops away from righties and runs in on lefties with great effectiveness.
McCullers has been working the changeup/knuckle-curve/slider mix against lefties with the curve being especially effective with a .077 oBA and a 57.7% whiff rate
Against right handed hitters, he’s mainly gone with his slider and sinker to fairly poor results as opposing righty hitters are posting a .471 wOBA against the slider and .531 against his sinker.
Overall, righties have fared much better than lefties against McCullers with over 200 points higher batting average and 350 points higher slugging. And that is skewed a bit more in this small sample but righties throughout his career have been better at hitting McCullers with a .712 OPS over 1,612 plate appearances compared to .632 for lefties in 1,496 trips to the plate.
It would run divergent to traditional strategy but it would likely be beneficial for Kelly to push a righty-heavy lineup and cull out the elevated slider/sinker combo, which provides the best chance for this team keeping McCullers in check.
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