Pittsburgh Pirates Squander Opportunity to Sweep Four-Game Series

Pittsburgh Pirates get best series long starting pitching performance of the season

Since May 1st the starting rotation of the Pittsburgh Pirates has slowly, and quietly, rounded into a solid group. In their series split against the Marlins, the Pirates got their best series long performance from their starting rotation that they have all season.

Mitch Keller and Zach Thompson both turned in their best starts of their season. Honestly, Keller’s start was honestly the best of his MLB career. JT Brubaker also turned in arguably his best start of the season.

Keller started the opening game of the series and held the Marlins to 1 run in 7 innings pitched. This marked the first time in Keller’s now four-year major league career that he went 7 full innings in a start. He allowed five hits, did not walk a batter, did not allow a home run, and struck out five.

Since adding a sinker to his repertoire in mid-May, Keller has now made 10 appearances with eight of them being starts. He has pitched 50.1 innings in these outings, posting a 3.75 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 9.3% walk rate, 20.8% strikeout rate and a home run rate of 0.54 HR/9. Keller may finally be putting it all together for the Pirates.

Game two of the series was a bullpen game for the Bucs. Chris Stratton started, and give the Pirates all they could have expected and more. Stratton allowed 1 run while pitching 2.1 innings, any team will take that from a closer.

The final two games of the series saw the Pirates waste terrific starting pitching performance. Brubaker allowed just three hits, while walking a pair and striking out nine in 7 scoreless innings pitched. Thompson pitched a season-high 6.2 innings, allowing just 1 run on four hits, three walks, two strikeouts and no home runs in the series finale. Unfortunately, due to poor offense and blown saves by the bullpen the Pirates were walked off in extra innings in both Brubaker and Thompson’s starts.

In this series the Pirates got 20.2 innings out of traditional starting pitchers, with just 2 runs being allowed. They also got a 2.1 innings pitched with 1 run allowed performance from a starter. This is more than good enough to win, if not sweep a four-game series.