7-6-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
This offense is back to its underwhelming ways after losing zeros through the first two games of this series. The road doesn’t get easier today as they go up against control-pitcher, George Kirby.
Kirby is an edge-lord and master painter, hitting corners, avoiding the middle of the plate and limiting walks. Since his debut in 2022, no one has a lower walk rate than Kirby.
After an injury-delayed start to the season and a few early hiccups, Kirby is locked back in as he allowed two or less runs in 5 of his last 6 starts.
He enters today with a 4.85 ERA over 42.2 innings with 41 strikeouts to 9 walks.
I covered him previously when last faced the Pirates on August 18th last year, pitching 6 innings and holding the Bucs to 2 runs of 4 hits and 2 walks with 5 strikeouts.
He has six unique pitches after adding a high-80s changeup this past offseason back to his fastball, slider, sinker, curve, split mix.
Kirby runs his fastballs up to 98 MPH while dropping as low as 82 with his knuckle-curve. He will mainly use the 4-seam against lefties and the sinker when facing righties with the slider as his main secondary for both.
Surprisingly, both are having the most success against Kirby’s slider as righties are posting a .286 batting average against the pitch while lefties are batting .421 and slugging .632 against the offering.
He typically runs the slider down arm-side and off the plate but if he doesn’t pull it enough, it can be the one for Pirates hitters to target.
It’s another tough opposing pitcher today but there’s no time like the present for the bats to get hot again.
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