PITTSBURGH — The Pirates lost an insane — and insanely long — game against the Arizona Diamondbacks Wednesday, 6-5 in 14 innings.
The Pirates came back from deficits of 2-0, 4-2 and 5-4, with Jordy Mercer proving the drama, driving in a run in the ninth and hitting a solo homer in the bottom of the 11th. Jhan Mariñez pitched two scoreless, but was sent out for a third as the last man in the bullpen and couldn’t hang on in the 14th, giving up the winning run on a Chris Owings single.
Seven hours earlier, Chad Kuhl had an awfully interesting outing, debuting a curveball. Kuhl threw 15 hooks after having thrown exactly one all season. His reasoning was pretty interesting. Kuhl has had issues with overthrowing his fastball all season. In some of his best starts, his fastball has been in the 93-94 mph range.
But if his fastball is at 93 or 94, it isn’t separated by very much from his slider and his changeup, which sit at about 90.
Kuhl could have tried throwing his slider softer — making it into more of a slurve — but he thinks his slider has been his most effective pitch for most the season, so messing with it was off the table.
“I really don’t want to mess with the slider,” he said. “I think the slider is in a good spot. It’s just to add something else that isn’t 88 to 95 mph.”
Slotting the curveball in below that velocity will let Kuhl treat his slider almost like a cutter. He’ll have the two-seam that breaks one direction, the slider that breaks the other along with the changeup, all in roughly the same speed range and then the slowed-down curveball to keep hitters from sitting on the harder stuff.
“We wanted something that changes the eye,” Kuhl said. “If they’re swinging at a heater and they get something that’s only three mph different, it still can play into their swing. I think it’ll be a big pitch for me.”
Here is Kuhl’s pitch breakdown from Wednesday. You can see how close his fastball is to his primary off speed offerings and how dramatic of a difference the velocity is to the curve.
Of course, it’s one thing to come up with that as a plan. It’s another to execute with the curveball, which is a pitch Kuhl hasn’t thrown regularly as a professional.
“It’s something we’ve been working on,” Kuhl said. I think I threw one to (Ryan) Zimmerman in the Nationals game. Just to see. It’s something we’ve been working on for a while.”
Because this move was made as a result of Kuhl’s recent issues, it isn’t even something he worked on a lot in spring training. It’s pretty difficult for any pitcher to debut a new pitch from scratch mid-season, but it is especially so for a 24-year-old in his second major-league season and barely holding onto a job with a 6.09 ERA. That takes some pretty serious guts.
“It’s the confidence,” Kuhl said. “You never really know what you have. You throw it in the bullpens, but nobody’s really up there trying to hit it. … I threw 10-15, somewhere in there. Most for strikes. I got a couple of groundouts with it.”
If Kuhl can execute with the curveball and fit it into his repertoire, it could be a very useful pitch going forward.
SICK SLIDER
Kuhl was really pleased with the way he threw his slider on Wednesday and there’s good reason for that. He leaned on it heavily early, throwing it seven times in the first inning. Kuhl said after he gave up a leadoff double to Gregor Blanco and a walk to David Peralta, he needed to come through with at least one strikeout. He got three.
He struck out Paul Goldschmidt on three pitches, going slider, fastball and then back to the slider for a swinging K. To the lefty Jake Lamb, he went four-seam, change, change, sinker, four-seam for an elevated swing and miss. Against Owings, he went slider-curve-slider-slider for another punch out.
His slider usually generates swings and misses about 20 percent of the time. Wednesday? It was 3 of 8 (37.5 percent).
“It’s one of those things that I feel like I have a ton of confidence in that pitch,” Kuhl said. “So, being able to throw that first pitch or to get a strikeout is something I’m pretty confident in.”
NOTES
Gift Ngoepe and Alen Hanson won’t make the trip to New York with the team. Max Moroff and Phil Gosselin will be joining the team in New York. Ngoepe reached on an error in the ninth inning. Hanson pinch ran for Francisco Cervelli, also in the ninth. … Adam Frazier went 0 for 7 with two strikeouts and grounded into two double plays. … John Jaso was 3 for 6 with a double.
