PITTSBURGH — Clint Hurdle finally found a place to use Tyler Glasnow.
The Pirates’ promising 23-year-old righty was brought up to Pittsburgh and moved to the bullpen with hopes of correcting some of the issues he’s had in a “controlled environment,” according to manager Clint Hurdle.
But Glasnow spent 10 days before getting his first opportunity in the Pirates 8-0 blowout at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds Sunday.
Glasnow pitched three-plus innings and gave up two runs on five hits, one walk and three strikeouts. He said other than the shorter prep time, he didn’t notice much of a difference pitching out of the bullpen.
“It was nice getting back out there and pitching again. I haven’t done that in a while. It was nice going back out,” he said. “You don’t have as much time, obviously. You can’t do the same stuff. But pitching is pitching. You get warmed up and by the end of it, you feel the same.”
Glasnow was happy with his curveball — a pitch he said was the worst he’d seen it in his last major-league appearance July 23 — and continued to work with his changeup, a pitch the Pirates are hoping he continues to develop.
The two runs scored in three innings don’t exactly add up to top-flight starter numbers, but I asked Hurdle if Glasnow will be graded on something of a curve, having been off for 10 days and pitching out of the bullpen in a competitive game for the first time since high school. He said he’ll rely on some of the Triple-A staff that’s now in Pittsburgh to compare Glasnow’s MLB bullpen work with what he was doing in Triple-A all season. On the whole, Hurdle seemed pleased.
“I thought that he was able to prepare, get through a routine and get into a game,” he said. “I thought he was able to throw strikes. I thought he was able to use his breaking ball. He threw some changeups. Only one walk in the outing. Three punch outs. Overall, I think it was just a good experience getting up and getting into it and dealing with it in a very professional fashion.”
I asked Hurdle what he’s looking to see out of Glasnow the last three weeks of the season.
“The overall command up here,” he said. “When runners get on base, the controlling the running game portion of it. To be able to throw the changeup, also. All three pitches will need to work and they have at times in the minor league. To see the fastball be worked down, up when he wants it, in and out. So we were able to get him in the game and really get him some positives moving forward.”
Glasnow was pulled after facing three batters in the eighth inning, which would have been his fourth. His last batter was a four-pitch walk to Tony Renda, and that at-bat was the signal to Hurdle that enough was enough.
“I thought we got him into a spot where we started to see the actual stuff start to drop,” he said. “I thought he gave it his best shot. The environment was something completely different, so I didn’t think we needed to push it any further than that.”
Glasnow ended up throwing 57 pitches: 35 fastballs, 21 curveballs and two changeups. His fastball velocity was around 93 and at least once hit 95.
His strikeouts were a curveball swinging to Scott Schebler, a fastball looking on a 2-2 count to Tyler Holt, and a curveball swinging to Adam Duvall.
It’s clear that when the curveball is working, it can be a weapon in an offensive count for him. The lack of changeups is mildly disappointing. With only three innings pitched, he probably didn’t need to go to it. But the Pirates were down seven runs when he entered the game. If there was ever a time to experiment with it, that would have been it.
With the Pirates dipping farther and farther from Wild Card contention, they hope to get Glasnow more work before the end of the 2016 season. Hopefully, he’ll be able to use it to develop his third pitch into a weapon.
