6-12-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
The oft-injured, two-time Tommy John surgery-recipient Jameson Taillon while with the Pirates has been the picture of health over his time since leaving the Steel City as he has 28 or more starts in each of the past four years and is on pace to make it a fifth this season as well.
He has faced the Bucs five times over the past few seasons – including most recently on September 2nd last year where he dominated with 7 shutout innings of 3-hit ball.
I covered Taillon previously (see here and here) and his arsenal is not changing much from last season. He is throwing his cutter less (13% down from 25% last year) and his changeup more (4% last season and 11% this year) but he’s still filling up the strike zone with fastballs and gets soft contact against his breaking stuff.
He’s had a ton of success against lefties as he works a fastball/curve/changeup trio of pitches – none of which are being hit above a .185 clip by left handed hitters.
Specifically at home, Taillon has been cruising with lefties slashing .143/.167/.357 in 72 plate appearances against JT at Wrigley.
Righties are mostly seeing sweepers which break down and away from hitters paired with fastballs up in the zone. Taillon mixes in the cutter at times but righties have been doing damage against the offering with a .667 SLG% against the pitch while batting .268 against the sweeper and .270 when seeing his 4-seam.
As mentioned before, Taillon is a control-pitcher who aims for contact-oriented approach ahead of mainly trying to miss bats. He won’t walk a ton of hitters and has been in a groove with 5 straight quality starts and a 2.20 ERA over his last 32.2 innings pitched and has been solid for the past two months of games.
Don’t let Taillon expand the zone, be ready to hit at the dish and look to attack elevated heat or hanging sweepers. This Cubbies pen has been tough to beat so the Bucs will want to do their damage against the starters all weekend.
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