I was able to watch the JT Brubaker outing well after the Prospect Watch was finished last night, so I wanted to give some thoughts. He came into the game looking like he was having a strong season, sitting in the top 15 in the South Atlantic League in ERA, WHIP and strikeouts. He ended the game with more walks than last year and twice as many home runs allowed as last year, when he threw 40.1 more innings for Morgantown. That tells you that it’s still considered early in the season when one start can change things so drastically. It also tells you that Brubaker was putting up some good numbers despite some early issues.
Brubaker had an ugly first inning and it was worse than three runs allowed looks in the boxscore. He allowed a lead-off homer, a bloop single, then a two-run homer to the first three batters. That was followed by three straight outs, but none of those outs were routine. The first was a line drive to Casey Hughston in center field. The second was a fly ball to the warning track in left-center. The last was a liner to the gap that Hughston made a terrific diving catch on.
The strange thing about the inning was that it was almost all fastball and they were almost all up in the zone. He missed a couple down, but the single and second homer were both good pitches down in the zone. So the high fastballs didn’t hurt him as much as the pitches you want to see from him. Brubaker has an 0.54 GO/AO ratio this yer, which tells you he has probably been getting away with some pitches up in the zone all season. His GO/AO last year was three times higher, so we considered him a ground ball pitcher coming into this season.
I won’t go over the whole game like we do in the prospect watch, but I’ll quickly go over the innings. Brubaker had a strikeout and two fly balls in the second. He left the ball up a lot this inning as well, but he ran his streak to six in a row retired. The third started with another hard hit liner at Casey Hughston. Then Brubaker started mixing in off-speed pitches and while he didn’t have the best command, he was getting some chases out of the zone. That worked for the first batter, but when he went to his slider too often to the second hitter, he ended up issuing a walk.
The third inning ended with Christian Kelley throwing out a runner on a terrific throw despite it being a low slider that he back-handed. A very tough pitch to throw on and he got rid of it in a hurry.
The first pitch of the fourth inning was crushed off the batter’s eye in straight away center field to make it 4-0. The next batter flew out to the right field corner. Brubaker finally had a couple nice at-bat, getting a soft grounder to first base on the first pitch, followed by another easy ground to first base.
He gave up a hard grounder up the middle to start the fifth, then got a strikeout on a slider. After a steal of second, Kelley threw out the runner trying to steal third. Brubaker walked the next batter and again he went heavy with off-speed pitches, having trouble throwing them for strikes. There was another steal on a pitch Brubaker almost threw to the backstop, which was then followed by his third walk, this one on four pitches.
The fifth ended with a long fly to center field and the sixth started with a line drive to third base. Brubaker got a nice strikeout on three pitches, followed by a line drive single to center field. His outing ended on fly ball to the warning track in right field.
If you read all that and processed it, you figured out that Brubaker gave up a lot of hard hit outs. There were a lot of outs in the air and he got some help from his catcher. When you see an outing that starts with three runs before an out, then ends with one run over six innings, you would think that the pitcher really settled down and pitched well the rest of the game. That’s what I thought going into watching it, but that clearly wasn’t the case. His fastball was off all game. His slider/change combo worked well until he tried to use them too much, then batters just stopped chasing them. He hung a couple curves that were out of the zone. That’s his fourth pitch, which he didn’t use often last year and I didn’t see it much in this game.
Brubaker has obviously done some things right this season. You don’t rank that high in ERA, WHIP and strikeouts through five starts by luck. This game was a very bad outing, and disappointing because it’s the first time I’ve really got a good look at him. I’ve seen video from college and our own video from spring, but the only other start I saw from him was in the playoffs for Morgantown against Staten Island, and they had one camera view from high above/behind home plate, so it’s not the ideal view for getting a read of a pitcher. The quality was also subpar.
The good thing though, is that I will be at his next start, so I’ll get a chance to see if this was a fluke, or he really has been getting away with poor command up in the zone all season and now it finally caught up to him. It will actually be a good test, as Brubaker will be facing one of the better hitting teams in the league. Just a couple days ago, West Virginia was leading the SAL in team ERA, but back-to-back poor outings from Logan Sendelbach and Brubaker have pushed them down to second place, trailing the Charleston team that beat them last night.
PIRATES GAME GRAPH
Source: FanGraphs
TODAY’S SCHEDULE
Today’s Starter and Notes: The Pirates won 4-2 over the Cardinals on Friday night. Jeff Locke gets the start this afternoon for the Pirates. He gave up three runs over seven innings in his last start, which followed a six shutout inning performance. The Cardinals will counter with Adam Wainwright, who has a 6.68 ERA in six starts. Over 33.2 innings, he has a 1.57 WHIP and 18 strikeouts.
In the minors, Tyler Glasnow makes his sixth start of the season. In his last game, he threw five shutout innings, though he also walked a season high five batters. Last time he faced Louisville, he allowed four earned runs over five innings. In his other four starts combined, Glasnow has given up two runs.
Altoona was rained out yesterday. They will play a doubleheader today. Austin Coley goes for Bradenton for the sixth time. He hasn’t gone more than 5.1 innings in a start this season. He surpassed that mark 13 times last year with West Virginia.
MLB: Pittsburgh (16-13) @ Cardinals (15-15) 2:15 PM
Probable starter: Jeff Locke (3.86 ERA, 17:29 BB/SO, 28.0 IP)
AAA: Indianapolis (14-12) vs Louisville (16-10) 7:05 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Tyler Glasnow (2.08 ERA, 12:37 BB/SO, 26.0 IP)
AA: Altoona (11-16) vs Richmond (10-16) 4:00 PM DH (season preview)
Probable starter: Tyler Eppler (3.38 ERA, 13:13 BB/SO, 23.2 IP) and TBD
High-A: Bradenton (13-15) vs Charlotte (15-13) 6:30 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Austin Coley (5.40 ERA, 10:18 BB/SO, 23.1 IP)
Low-A: West Virginia (16-11) vs Hagerstown (18-9) 7:05 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Bret Helton (5.24 ERA, 7:17 BB/SO, 22.1 IP)
HIGHLIGHTS
Here is a double from Alen Hanson, who scored one batter later on a double from Gift Ngoepe. Hanson had a good game on Wednesday, making some fine defensive plays and he contributed to the scoring three times, with two hits, two runs and an RBI on a sacrifice fly.
RECENT TRANSACTIONS
5/6: Jung-ho Kang activated from disabled list.
5/6: Mel Rojas Jr. assigned to Extended Spring Training.
5/5: Jason Rogers optioned to Indianapolis.
5/2: Jason Creasy placed on disabled list. Brandon Waddell promoted to Altoona
5/2: Tate Scioneaux promoted to Bradenton.
4/30: Jared Hughes activated from the disabled list. Rob Scahill sent to Indianapolis.
4/27: Sam Street placed on the temporary inactive list. Jose Regalado added to Bradenton.
4/25: Pedro Florimon added to Indianapolis roster. Antoan Richardson released.
4/25: Austin Meadows added to Altoona roster. Justin Maffei assigned to Morgantown.
4/25: Jake Burnette placed on disabled list. Logan Ratledge assigned to West Virginia.
THIS DATE IN PIRATES HISTORY
Two former Pittsburgh Pirates players born on this date, two trades of note and one historic play from 1925. The players born on May 7th are Mark Smith, outfielder for the 1997-98 Pirates, and Dave Barbee, who played left field for the team in 1932.
The first trade of note has a major player involved, Hall of Fame center fielder Lloyd Waner. He was dealt to the Boston Braves in 1941 for pitcher Nick Strincevich. Waner was on the downside on his career and eventually returned to the Pirates in 1944 for his last two seasons. Strincevich started off real slow in Pittsburgh, but by the time Waner returned, he was a different pitcher. Over the 1944-46 seasons, he won 40 games and pitched over 600 innings, making the deal a win for the Pirates. During that 1941 season, Waner went to the plate 234 times without striking out.
Also traded on this date in 1962 was pitcher Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell, who was sent to the expansion New York Mets in exchange for first baseman Jim Marshall. Mizell had 90 career wins and Marshall was hitting .344 at the time of the deal, but by the end of the season, both saw their Major League career end.
On this date in 1925, shortstop Glenn Wright turned the sixth unassisted triple play in Major League history. It came in the ninth inning of a 10-9 loss to the Cardinals at Forbes Field. Wright caught a liner, stepped on second base and then tagged the runner coming from first. The batter was Hall of Fame first baseman Jim Bottomley and the runner on first base was Hall of Fame second baseman Rogers Hornsby. The runner on second base was Jimmy Cooney, who happened to be the next player to turn an unassisted triple play, which he did two years later against the Pirates.
