PITTSBURGH — There have been many games in his brief MLB career that Tyler Glasnow has had a good amount of strikeouts.
His career high is seven, coming in five innings at Chicago back in April. He struck out six against Milwaukee in May and has struck out five four times. None of his starts have lasted more than six innings, so that adds up to an impressive 9.4 K/9 for his career.
But many of those games weren’t positive outings for the young pitcher. In a quest for strikeouts, he elevated his pitch counts, helping to shorten his outings and also leading to sequences where his command left him on the wrong side of the edges of the strike zone. Instead of putting pitches on the black — where they needed to be for strikeouts — he ended up walking batters, which was compounding by his early issues holding on base runners to create a snowballing problem.
The solution seems simple — throw more strikes to the lower half of the plate and get quicker outs — but that wasn’t a panacea, either. Without fine control, a pitch targeted for the ankles can easily end up knee-high. So Glasnow threw more strikes and got hit around. In his last start in Arizona, he gave up seven runs in an inning — most of them on hard-hit balls.
Clearly, there needs to be a compromise between walking too many batters and finding too much of the strike zone. That seems to be tightrope that Glasnow will have to walk to find MLB success unless he can develop his command and control to the point where he can be more precise.
He was able to do that on Thursday against the Washington Nationals. He struck out six — including Bryce Harper twice — and kept his pitch count at a reasonable 87 pitches through five innings. He allowed just three hits and would have escaped the day with just two runs allowed had it not been for his own two-run throwing error.
“He was enough around the zone that you’ve gotta gear up (for the fastball),” manager Clint Hurdle said. “He let a couple go today — 96 or 97, maybe — he can elevate it, and he can spin down and the change-up can play. The fastball, (catcher Chris Stewart) did a nice job with it with some sequences and focus. I think it was a really nice step.”
Glasnow also nicely handled the adversity he was dealt on the mound. Daniel Murphy hit a home run and Glasnow gave up two walks in the second inning, but he struck out mount opponent Tanner Roark to get out of the jam. After throwing the ball away in the fourth, he pitched a 1-2-3 fifth to complete the outing.
“He was able to reset and make some pitches,” Hurdle said.
OTHER PARTS OF THE GAME
Glasnow’s error was nearly costly, as it allowed the Nationals to tie the game at 4-4 in the fourth. It started as a routine ground ball, but his throw pulled Josh Bell off the bag at first base and into the path of Roark, who was running to first.
Glasnow said he thought he had more time than he did and then just rushed the throw. He said the starting pitchers don’t work on defense a lot during the season, but he has made a commitment to working on his hitting.
He went 1 for 2 with a single to center in the second, raising his batting average to .222 on the season. At 6-foot-8, he certainly has the frame to be a productive hitting pitcher, and it’s something he’s worked on a lot this season. After all, he can only throw so much. After that, there has to be another way take out the frustrations of his slow start. He’s used the batting cage.
“I think a lot of it is going into your work week,” he said. “Working on hitting takes the pressure off pitching and vice-versa.”
LEADING MAN
Adam Frazier has apparently taken to being an everyday leadoff hitter. He went 3 for 5 with a career-high four RBIs on Thursday.
Since coming back from the disabled list, he’s played five straight games as the leadoff man and starting left fielder. In that span, he has a .462 on-base percentage, which is certainly what the Pirates are looking for from the top spot.
“He’s done a very nice job for us,” Hurdle said. “A very professional guy up there, sees pitches, swings the bat. Sometimes he’s ready to fire early; sometimes he can go deep in the count.”
Frazier said there’s definitely a benefit to playing a more regular schedule as compared to his days of being a utility player that could hit anywhere in the lineup.
“No doubt. It lets you focus on what you’re doing at the plate. You can just go out there and react instead of thinking about what you’re doing a lot. Bouncing around, you definitely have to do that.”
ONE FOR THE WALL
Outfielder Danny Ortiz collected his first major-league hit in the seventh inning after entering the game as a defensive replacement. He later came around to score on Frazier’s RBI single.
“It feels great to be able to get your first major league hit, and not only that but be able to score, especially because when they called me up that’s the biggest thing I wanted – I just wanted to make sure I got that first major league hit,” Ortiz said. “The best part about it is this a memory I’ll have for the rest of my life and it’s something I’ll never forget about.”
NOTES
Josh Bell hit a two-run home run, going deep in back-to-back games. He leads all National League rookies with nine home runs on the season. … Andrew McCutchen went 2 for 5 with a double after going 2 for 4 on Wednesday, raising his batting average from .206 to .220 in two days.
