PITTSBURGH — The Pirates are 13th in the National League in wRC+ and wOBA, as one of the least-productive offensive teams on the circuit.
Yet, they’re just 3.5 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers entering play on Wednesday in the NL Central. A lot of that is due to the general mediocrity of the division (the first-place Brewers are only two games above .500) and the quality starting pitching the Pirates have gotten from Gerrit Cole, Ivan Nova, and Jameson Taillon.
They’ve also come through with some timely offense of late. The Pirates have two walk-offs on this homestand and those two games are their only two victories. They won those games on a John Jaso RBI single and an Andrew McCutchen solo home run, but in order to win games like that more frequently, the Pirates need situational hitting.
Frankly, a team with an offense as poor as the Pirates overall isn’t likely to get many runners into scoring position, so when they do, capitalizing on that situation because even more important.
One area the Pirates could improve upon is with a man on third base and less than two outs. The Pirates have 101 plate appearances this season in that situation and have brought the man home less than half of the time (49 RBIs — 48.5 percent). The league average this season is for that run to score 61.5 percent of the time.
It follows that a less-talented offense would be less talented at certain parts of hitting, but I asked manager Clint Hurdle if he preaches anything specific to his team about what to do in order to get a sacrifice fly or find another way to drive the run it.
“There’s certain ways you’re going to get pitched in that situation and there’s a certain way to punch back,” Hurdle said. “Second and third and one out, pitchers are going to try to run the ball in on you so you pull a ground ball to third base. If they have a swing-and-miss pitch, they’re going to do that. They’re going to go down and then elevate and try to get you to pop a ball up in the infield. Decide hard or soft and stay with that until you get to two strikes. You don’t have to try to hit everything.”
The last Pirates player to hit a sacrifice fly was Josh Bell on Monday. Bell worked the count to 2-2 against Arizona starter Randall Delgado before taking an outside pitch to left-center field to bring home Jordy Mercer. Hurdle said that at-bat is a good blueprint to follow for a young hitter.
“He showed a nice resiliency to stay in that count, get a ball up over the plate and put a good swing on it,” Hurdle said.
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I wrote Tuesday about Ivan Nova’s struggles through the third time in the batting order. I talked with pitching coach Ray Searage today to get some more perspective on the matter.
Searage said success the third time through the order is a matter of not being predictable. It’s natural for the pitcher and catcher to fall into certain sequences of pitches. A two-seamer low and inside may be followed by a changeup low and away or a four-seamer up and in. Those sequences are designed that way to change the eye level of the hitter and get him swinging in one place while the ball is headed to another.
Those sequences can change a good bit for a pitcher over the course of a season, but over the span of one start, they can be consistent. In this case, consistency is a bad thing.
“You have to play the chess game and not be predictable,” Searage said. “Our sequences get similar. Not all the time, but they get similar. Getting behind in the count, too, gives them more chances to hunt a fastball. We need to mix it up a little bit.”
Searage said the main benefit for the hitter is being able to guess correctly which pitch is going to be thrown and where. If a hitter is sitting fastball outside and he gets a fastball outside, he’s more likely to make solid contact. If he’s sitting fastball outside and he gets a different pitch or a fastball in a different location, even if he hits it, he’s less likely to hit the ball hard.
What Searage saw in the sixth and seventh innings Tuesday was a slightly less effective Nova due to natural fatigue, but also some hitters that were just guessing right when it came to which pitch was coming.
“They know he’s going to throw strikes, so (the hitter) picks his pitch,” Searage said. “To go back to the chess game, instead of moving your rook, you need to move your pawn or something like that to keep them guessing. That way, they can’t figure you out or get a better idea of what pitch they’re hunting.”
