7-27-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
Despite not getting a ton of offense yesterday, the Bucs got enough to secure a win and now are in position for a series win and a winning homestand – a surprising outcome given the sweep courtesy of the White Sox last weekend.
The final starter of the Diamondbacks series is their long-time ace, Zac Gallen, who is looking to find consistency on the mound over a very up-and-down 2025 campaign (mostly down).
Gallen is a free agent after this year but with the season he’s having, the market may be drying up for the 2023 Cy Young finalist.
Among all qualified MLB starters, Gallen has the 2nd highest ERA (5.58), allowed the 2nd most earned runs (75), the 5th most hits (120), the 7th most walks (46) and has given up the most home runs (23) – the highest of his career (previous most was 22 over 210 innings in 2023).
Pittsburgh bested him earlier this season as they raked him for 6 runs (5 earned) off 6 hits, 3 walks and 3 strikeouts through innings on May 28th.
Gallen mainly works a fastball/curve/changeup mix against lefties while switching to fastball/curve/slider when facing right-handed hitters. While the curve has still been a fairly strong offering that has garners a 42.9% whiff rate, righties are batting .265 against Gallen’s slider while his fastball has been hit at a .295 clip by lefties.
In the previous matchup two months ago, the Pirates were hitting Gallen exceptionally hard with an average exit velocity on batted balls of 93.4 MPH and 8 balls hit at 97+ MPH.
Continue what well last time and look to attack the fastballs/sliders, fight off the curve and put some balls in the seats to get a series win over the Snakes.
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