P2Daily: Grinding out Wins

This weekend I talked a bit about the good and the bad that we’ve seen so far from the Pirates.

The best thing, in my opinion, is how they’ve been utilizing their bullpen. The Pirates have used Dillon Peters and Wil Crowe as effective, lights-out-so-far, multi-inning relievers, capable of stepping in and picking up the starting pitcher.

JT Brubaker yesterday went three innings, giving up two runs, one earned. He was replaced by Peters, who pitched 2.2 shutout innings, followed by Crowe, who pitched 1.1 additional shutout innings, all while holding a two run lead.

That got the Pirates to the eighth inning with a lead big enough to survive a Heath Hembree home run allowed, before Chris Stratton and David Bednar closed it out.

In total, the trio of Brubaker, Peters, and Crowe combined for seven innings of two run, one earned, baseball. That got a lead to the more traditional relievers, who preserved that lead over the final two innings.

The Pirates enter this week with an 8-8 record, and a lot of the wins are of the same fashion. While they had one embarrassing loss this weekend, they also had three more wins that all followed the same pattern of pitching usage.

That pitching usage is almost like playoff usage. The strategy seems so strict and specific.

Brubaker pitched three innings, throwing 44 pitches. He made it through the lineup one and a half times.

Peters had almost the same amount of pitches over 2.2 innings, and was so effective that he didn’t even make it through the lineup once.

Then, with two outs, none on, and a two-run lead, the Pirates pulled Peters to bring on Crowe, who had a bit of a rougher night than usual, and was saved by a nice play in the sixth by Yoshi Tsutsugo. Crowe put runners on first and third, but escaped the inning.

What I liked the most was the resolve from the relievers.

Crowe put those runners on, but got a strike out and a foul out to prevent the runner on third from scoring, before getting out of the inning with a line out to center.

Hembree gave up the home run, and got a second out before Chris Stratton came on. Stratton put runners on first and second before a 93 MPH swinging strikeout to escape with a one-run lead.

Even David Bednar had a rougher night than usual, giving up two straight one-out doubles, but escaping the game with the win thanks to two more strikeouts to end the game.

The Pirates are putting their relievers in really favorable positions to have good outcomes. Even when the stuff isn’t the best, and the other team is managing to hit those relievers, the Pirates are seeing positive results.

Their ability to grind out wins in this manner could keep them closer to the race for .500 in 2022 than the race for the 2023 first overall pick.