Pittsburgh Pirates: Top 5 Pitching Performances of 2015

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Oct 7, 2015; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Gerrit Cole (45) and catcher Francisco Cervelli (29) react after giving up a home run during the third inning in the National League Wild Card playoff baseball game at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

The 2015 World Series reminded everyone just how important pitching is as the dominant rotation of the Mets was matched up with the relentless bullpen of the Royals. The Pirates are well aware of this, though, as their pitching has been a major part of the resurgence as a contending team.

Behind the strong one-two punch of Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano, the Pittsburgh Pirates were able to get the most of guys like A.J. Burnett, Charlie Morton and J.A. Happ to help carry the team to the postseason for the third season in a row.

In 2015, Gerrit Cole posted a 19-8 record to clearly define himself as the ace but the rest of the staff pulled it’s weight as well. The starting rotation combined for a 67-48 record with a 3.53 ERA – good for 5th in the National League (and behind the 4 other playoff teams). Those 67 wins peg them the 2nd-most winning rotation in the league this season as well, behind only the Cardinals.

With names like that, you’d expect some big games and the numbers don’t lie. In this slideshow, I’m going to look back on the Pirates’ five best starting pitching performances from 2015, based on Baseball-reference.com’s Game score.*

*Game score is calculated by starting with 50 and adding 1 point for each out, 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th and 1 point for each strikeout. Points can be subtracted as well, 2 for each hit, 4 for each earned run, 2 for each unearned run and 1 for each walk.

May 22, 2015; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher

Gerrit Cole

(45) pitches against the New York Mets during the fifth inning at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

#5) May 22 – Gerrit Cole vs New York Mets

Game Score: 78

In just their 42nd game of the season, the Pittsburgh Pirates got their first chance to face rookie phenom Noah Syndergaard and who better to match up with him than Gerrit Cole. Cole responded by shutting the Mets down for his 6th win of the year and turning in his best start of the season, according to game score.

Admittedly, the Mets team Cole faced on May 22 was much different than the team that played in the World Series – they had Eric Campbell, Juan Lagares and Kevin Plawecki in the starting lineup at this point – but he dominated them nonetheless and earned a win in the opening game of the weekend series.

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The Pirates got on the board in the bottom of the 2nd inning with a two out rally off Syndergaard. Pedro Alvarez hit a ground rule double, Gregory Polanco reached on an error, then stole 2nd base and took 3rd on a passed ball. Chris Stewart then knocked a double of his own to push across the second unearned run of the inning.

The Pirates would score two more runs in the 6th inning but those 2 runs would be all the support Gerrit Cole needed on this night. He would pitch 8.1 innings, allowing just one (unearned) run and a walk while striking out 10.

The only trouble he encountered came in the 3rd inning when Juan Lagares reached on an error and eventually scored on a wild pitch to Curtis Granderson. With the tying run now on third and one out, Cole came up with a huge strikeout of Granderson and sat down Eric Campbell on two pitches to retire the side.

The Pirates would score two more runs in the 6th and needing a strong 7th inning from Cole to secure the momentum, he delivered by striking out the 3-4-5 batters on 14 pitches total. Killing the momentum was the theme of Cole’s night; on four separate occasions, he allowed a baserunner only to induce a double play from the very next batter.

Cole nearly went the distance, striking out the leadoff batter in the 9th inning, but was removed after allowing two straight baserunners and Mark Melancon converted the two-out save, his 10th of the season.

Sep 4, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher

J.A. Happ

(32) throws the ball against the St. Louis Cardinals during the first inning at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

#4) September 4 – J.A. Happ vs St. Louis Cardinals

Game Score: 79

The final score (9-3 Pirates) makes the game seem a bit more lopsided than it really was as J.A. Happ left with a 4-0 lead after turning in 7 shutout innings, striking out 8 and walking none. Happ – who was making just his 6th start with the Pirates – ended up being one of the unlikely heroes down the stretch and in the opening game of a weekend series, he went into St. Louis and shut down the National League Central Division champs.

Happ opened up his outing by allowing a single to Steven Piscotty with one out and then a wild pitch that moved him over to second. And that would be all the Cardinals could manage to do against Happ. After retiring Jason Heyward and Jhonny Peralta to end the 1st inning, he didn’t allow another baserunner to reach second base.

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2015 was shockingly the first time A.J. Burnett was selected to an All-Star Game and this game was the showcase performance that helped him get in (it happening so close to the All-Star Game probably didn’t hurt either). Burnett has always been known to have a lot of movement on his pitches and when he’s got them moving the right way, nine shutout innings is the result.

Here’s a graph from Brooks Baseball showing the correlation between his vertical movement and velocity. To no surprise, his hard stuff was rising about 5 inches while his offspeed (most notably, his sinker) were dropping a good 5 inches in the other direction. When you can put a fastball past a guy at eye level and then blow a sinker by him at his knees, even the best batters are going to struggle and the Phillies weren’t exactly dressing the 1927 Yankees.

It’s a shame he couldn’t get the win but Burnett was a major part of the team’s success, especially early in the season and this was the pinnacle of his farewell season. Josh Harrison would drive in the winning run in the 11th inning, pushing the win streak to four games and giving the team a spark that allowed them to win the next four.

Jun 28, 2015; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher

Jeff Locke

(49) pitches against the Atlanta Braves during the first inning at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

#2) July 4 – Jeff Locke vs Cleveland Indians

Game Score: 84

Fans may be surprised to see Locke this high on the list but on America’s birthday, he delivered the best start of his career and paved the way for a 5-game win streak.

Speaking of 5-game win streaks, the Cleveland Indians came into PNC Park sporting one of their own only for Jeff Locke to cool them down and send them into a stretch of 19 games that saw them go 6-13. One start singlehandedly changed the next few weeks for both teams and people say momentum doesn’t exist in sports.

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It seemed as if it was going to be a struggle for Locke as he allowed the leadoff batter to reach base in each of the first two innings. However, he was able to induce ground ball double plays from the next batter in both cases and then really settled into a groove.

A groove may be an understatement for the trance Locke fell into on the mound. After a single by Giovanny Urshela in the 2nd inning, Locke retired the next 19 batters in a row. This was a Jeff Locke that Pirates’ fans had never seen before and unfortunately, haven’t seen again since.

Much like the start from Burnett on the previous slide, the Pirates didn’t give Locke much run support to work with (just one run scored on a Neil Walker single in the 6th inning) meaning that any run he allowed could have lost him the game. Locke picked up the guys behind him, though, and as he waited for offensive support, recorded 18 outs without letting the Indians even sniff a scoring chance.

Locke did strike out six, but he walked none and allowed just two hits which kept his innings short. Short innings equal long starts and Locke was able to go 8 shutout innings on just 89 pitches. Had Mark Melancon not been lights out or if the top of the order wasn’t due up in the 9th, I’m certain we would have seen Locke take a shot at that complete game shutout.

The sinker was Locke’s bread and butter on this day – as it usually is – but the reason he was so successful was his changeup. It breaks similarly to his sinker but his ability to take almost 11 MPH off it had the Indians off balance all afternoon. He poured in changeups at an 80.8% strike rate while making batters swing and miss at a higher rate (15.4%) than any other pitch.

He changed speeds excellently all day and when a change in velocity wasn’t enough, he changed directions with his curveball and completely fooled the Indians’ hitters like he did here to Jason Kipnis:

Locke was up and down all season and it’s made him a bit difficult to project his performance of the future. He’s caught a lot of criticism from fans but I’d imagine most of it comes because they see how effective he can be and are frustrated by his inconsistency. This outing has been an outlier so far in Locke’s career but now that we’ve seen him at his absolute best, hopefully he can find a way to regularly recreate it or at least build off the things that gave him success.

Jun 15, 2015; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher

Francisco Liriano

(47) delivers a pitch against the Chicago White Sox during the first inning of an inter-league game at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

#1) June 15 – Francisco Liriano vs Chicago White Sox

Game Score: 89

Maybe the Pirates should use strictly lefties in interleague play as the top 2 starting pitching performances from 2015 both came by lefties against an American League foe. Of course, it helps when one of those lefties is Francisco Liriano and the team he’s facing is the Chicago White Sox – residents of last place in the Central Division at the time of this game.

This game is a little different from others on the list as it was pure domination by the Pirates in every aspect. Liriano was flat out dominant, allowing just 2 hits and a walk while striking out twelve over 8 shutout innings. The offense crushed Chicago’s starter Carlos Rodon and to rub salt in the wound, Starling Marte recorded a “little league home run” when he doubled to right field and scored on an error on the throw to third base.

Francisco Liriano has been a household name for quite some time now and as good as he’s been, he’s never been this good. This outing was the best of Liriano’s career and the only start that was even close was one game in 2006.

With Marte and company putting on a show around him, perhaps Liriano wanted to give his defense a break and he did just that. Liriano struck out at least one batter in every inning of work and struck out the side twice. Even when the White Sox managed to put the ball in play, they played right into Liriano’s trap as they repeatedly drove the ball straight into the dirt. Liriano only induced 2 fly ball outs and one of them was in foul territory.

Obviously, a pitcher with a strong sinker is going to be more likely to force ground balls but only if the location compliments the movement. This graph shows how Liriano peppered both sides of the strike zone but only went above the belt about 5 times out of 100 pitches (that is some unbelievable control on display).

All of his pitches were working that day – as they need to be for anyone to pitch this well – but the changeup and slider were exceptionally effective for Liriano. You can see, on the graph above, all of the swings and misses just below the zone and you’d imagine that would be the work of his sinker, but you’d be wrong. He was throwing the changeup and slider both for strikes at a rate over 70% but surprisingly, Liriano caused swings and misses on 43.5% (!!!) of his changeups and 25% of his sliders (his sinker, only 6.3%).

While most people would blindly choose Gerrit Cole to have had the best start for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2015, I don’t think anybody who watched this season would be surprised to find out it came from Francisco Liriano. He was overshadowed by Cole but quietly had a great season and gave the Pirates and their fans not only the team’s best, but his personal best.

The parity in this list is astonishing. When I was preparing this, I thought maybe one of A.J. Burnett, J.A. Happ and Jeff Locke would make the list but never would have guessed all three. The Pirates had a deep rotation and was a major reason they finished 2nd in the toughest division in baseball last season but next season, they don’t have that luxury – at least as it stands now. The rotation will rely on the success of Cole and Liriano more than ever before but if Jon Niese and Jeff Locke are able to make a few starts worthy of this discussion for next year, much of the burden will be lifted.

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