6-7-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
The Pirates walked it off last night after a bullpen battle for both sides but will have to contend with a much more established starting pitcher for today’s game in Ranger Suarez, who enters today with a perfect 4-0 record and sparkling 2.72 ERA through his first 36.1 innings pitched.
Suarez has been on a TEAR the past few weeks. After a really awful first game back from the Injured List where he allowed 7 runs through 3.2 innings, he has been among the best in MLB at run prevention, pitching 5 straight quality starts allowing just 4 earned runs over 32.2 innings. In fact, since May 10, only Paul Skenes has a lower ERA than Suarez among qualified starters.
Granted, the lone blip outing where he allowed 3 of those 4 runs came against these Bucs on May 16 so maybe the Pirates have something on him here.
We already covered Suarez a bit in our preview piece ahead of that start (see here) but we can go in more depth here based on what we’ve seen thus far this season.
First thing that is clear: Suarez does not allow hard contact. His 0.9% opponent barrel rate is basically impossible and his hard-hit percentage of 26.2% is pretty insane as well. Given that he also generates ground balls like he’s running a miniature golf course, it’s a pretty excellent formula for success.
He’s dropping his sinker, changeup and curve down and away from righties while working inside with his cutter/4-seam fastball.
Suarez has been dispatching the changeup a bit more than the sinker in those situations generating excellent results with a 38.1% whiff rate and .231 wOBA.
By contrast, his sinker has been much more hittable as no righty batter has swung and missed on the pitch yet this season. Although it has resulted in balls hit right into the ground with a -10 average launch angle, righties should target that pitch in the game today to find holes in the dirt or leg out infield singles.
For lefty hitters, Suarez leans on his sinker heavily with his 4-seam as his next most-used offering.
Presumably, the only lefty in the lineup today will be Oneil Cruz, who has struggled against lefties but overall is batting .267 against 4-seamers and .300 against sinkers on the season.
While Suarez doesn’t get behind on hitters often (only 10 walks in the season and just 5 instances of a 3-0 count), hitters should try to get to 2-ball count before getting aggressive in the box. Opposing hitters are batting .253 against Suarez this season when they have 2+ balls in the count, compared to .190 in other counts so exerting some patience will be crucial for success against Ranger.
Stay on the sinker and try hammer some holes in the infield. Fight off junk in the zone, work counts as you try to get into this beleaguered Phillies pen as soon as possible.
Steel City Pirates 