8-1-2025 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X
Heading into Denver on a hot streak, the Pirates have won 8 of their last 9 games and are facing one of the only teams with a worse record than them in the Colorado Rockies, who will send out the seriously struggling starter, Antonio Senzatela.
Senzatela is arguably the worst starting pitcher in baseball this season as he leads MLB in hits allowed (152) and losses (14). Among pitchers with at least 100 innings, Senzatela has the lowest K rate (11.3%) with both the highest WHIP (1.84) and ERA (6.68), and has had more starts where he’s allowed 6 or more runs (5) than he has posted a shutout performance of just 4 innings or more (4).
Over his 9-year seasons exclusively with the Rockies, Senzatela has a 5.13 career ERA through 794.1 MLB innings, providing productive outings and even a strong 2020 campaign (3.44 ERA through 73.1 innings) but has failed to deliver since signing a 5-year, $50.5M deal signed in 2021.
The Rockies 2nd highest paid player (behind only fellow starter, Kyle Freeland) offers a mid-90s fastball that can touch 98 which he pairs with a mid-80s slider, low-80s curve and a high-80s changeup. Only his curve ranks as a positive pitch – and minimally at that – as his overall arsenal ranks as the worst Run Value in MLB.
Facing lefties, Senze focuses on a fastball/curve/changeup approach – none of which have a sub-.300 oBA or sub-.450 oSLG in theses situations. Meanwhile, right-handed hitters are primarily seeing his fastball/slider combo while batting .349 versus his slider and .380 against the fastball.
He’ll infrequently dispatch the curve against righties, which has been effective in a small sample size as opponents are batting just .050 in these scenarios but that is over only 21 plate appearances and the batted ball average exit velocity of 92.1 MPH is still high enough to imagine this not working for him long-term.
Look to attack him early as opposing hitters are slashing .393/.431/.589 first time through the lineup. Additionally, when he gets behind in counts, he makes BIG mistakes as opponents are batting .395 when they get ahead of him compared to .306 when Senzatela takes the advantage.
This is a beatable starter and a winnable game and, despite the trades made, this team is still much better than what the Rockies are putting out there every night. Find pitches over the plate and put good wood on the ball to keep the winning rolling.
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