Cardinals hope to keep winning.
There are some series previews were I genuinely feel like I’m informing some people who the Cardinals are facing. I am at the least informing myself. I am a baseball fan, but it’s probably more accurate to say I’m a Cardinals fan. Because I really don’t pay attention to the rest of the league. Especially since a fantasy league escaped from my grasp this year, so I really have no reason to follow anybody else. These series previews keep me informed of the rest of the league.
Except not in this case. I am very familiar with the Pittsburgh Pirates. I am sure all of you reading this are as well. The Pirates are not a good baseball team. They have a losing record and it’s not particularly close to .500 as they are 15 games below. They have been outscored by 42 runs by their opponents. They are the 29th best offense in baseball by wRC+ and their position players improve to 28th in all of baseball when you factor in defense and baserunning.
But just because they are a bad baseball team does not mean they are easy to beat. There are two different types of bad baseball teams. There’s the kind that on paper, there’s no reason you should ever lose to them. And then there’s the kind where it’s annoyingly easy to imagine how you will lose to them. And in the Pirates, it’s the pitching, and specifically the starting pitchers. Their starting pitcher fWAR is 8th in all of baseball. Their bullpen is average. That will lead to some wins no matter how bad your offense is.
The Pirates have had 10 position players play in at least 50 games this season and just two of them have been above average as hitters, Oneil Cruz and Andrew McCutchen. They are at 108 and 103, so they aren’t even that much above average. McCutchen mostly DHs, so he is not one of the two position players with 1 fWAR. That honor belongs to Cruz and Ke’Bryan Hayes, an awful hitter, but incredible fielder. They are led in plate appearances by Bryan Reynolds, who has been exactly replacement level this season.
Joey Bart, a welcome surprise last year, has disappointed this year, with just an 88 wRC+, though his .324 xwOBA is fairly close to last year’s. On the flip side, they’d probably be better offensively if Nick Gonzales or Spencer Horowitz had been healthy all year. Gonzales has a shade under 100 PAs and has a 125 wRC+ – though it was just 94 last year, so unclear if that’s at all for real. Horowitz has just an 84 wRC+, but a 115 wRC+ projection from ZiPS.
And then frankly, they somewhat bizarrely give a ton of starts to players who have no future with them. Tommy Pham has accumulated 193 PAs for them and has given them a 68 wRC+, though he’s been hot lately. He’s 10 for his last 24 with two homers. Isiah Kiner-Falefa has an 86 wRC+ for his 259 PAs. Jared Triolo has a 54 wRC+ in 148 PAs.
As for the bullpen, David Bednar is back. He might even be pitching better than ever. He has a 35.3 K%, 6.9 BB% and 47 GB%. When hitters make contact, they have a .344 BABIP though. They should trade him this deadline in case he falls apart again. We will definitely see Caleb Ferguson, who has mediocre advanced stats, but a 0 HR/FB% (career 12.3%) has helped him get a 2.75 ERA. Chase Shugart has a completely unsustainable 3.18 ERA, because he strikes out just 14.4% of hitters and walks 10.8% of hitters. Doesn’t get groundballs either. All the advanced stats say he’s a bad pitcher.
Isaac Mattson is your “random reliever gets great” player. It’s only 14.2 IP, but he has a 30.8 K% and 5.8 BB% with a 1.84 ERA. He had spent a grand total of 29 days in the majors before this season and is 29-years-old. Top 100 prospect Braxton Ashcraft is in the bullpen for some reason – has to be innings concerns – and he’s a heavy groundball pitcher who hasn’t struck out a ton. We may completely miss moved to the bullpen Carmen Mlodzinski, who threw 3.2 innings yesterday. Dennis Santana has been weirdly good on the strength of not walking hitters (career 9.8 BB%). And Genesis Cabrera is on his third team this year if that tells you anything about how good he’s been.
Monday – 5:40 PM
Erick Fedde (4.11 ERA/4.49 FIP/5.07 xFIP) vs. Andrew Heaney (4.48 ERA/4.86 FIP/4.53 xFIP)
There are going to be people pessimistic about this matchup because the Cardinals are facing a lefty and Fedde is pitching. Fedde has faced the Pirates before – he got six scoreless innings – 4 walks and 2 strikeouts of course, but 6 scoreless innings. I think the Cardinals struggles against LHP is quite overblown personally. They got six hits, two walks, a homer, and three runs against yesterday’s lefty. And Heaney is about the same quality pitcher as him.
I don’t know if this is a good sign or a bad sign, but Heaney has allowed a combined 14 earned runs in his past two starts. On the one hand, could be good because obviously if he is anything like that, the Cardinals should win. On the other hand, a basically decent veteran starting pitcher coming off two bad starts feels due to have a good one. Case in point, Heaney allowed six earned runs combined in the three starts prior and it was against the Cubs, Phillies and Padres. So which version of Heaney are we seeing?
Tuesday – 5:40 PM
Andre Pallante (4.43 ERA/4.53 FIP/3.66 xFIP) vs. Paul Skenes (2.12 ERA/2.51 FIP/3.14 xFIP)
Now this one, I’m less optimistic about. Surely, one of these times, the Pirates are actually going to win a game with Paul Skenes pitching and the Cardinals facing him. Like it’d be one thing for me if Skenes just sucked against the Cardinals, but he’s had one bad game. That’s it. The offense just never scores for him. He has allowed 0, 1, 2, 2, and 5 runs facing the Cardinals.
That said, Pallante still does get to face the Pirates offense. A Pirates offense that is humming right now. It did explode against the Mets. But I don’t know what’s happening to the Mets, so it could have easily been a one-off. I will say Skenes has looked more human this year – his ERA is 2.12, but he’s striking out way less (26.9 K%), walking more, and getting less groundballs.
Wednesday – 11:35 AM
Sonny Gray (3.36 ERA/2.96 FIP/2.99 xFIP) vs. Mitch Keller (3.90 ERA/3.33 FIP/3.97 xFIP)
I don’t know how the scheduling has worked this way, but the Cards have faced the Pirates in three series now. They have always faced Paul Skenes on Tuesday and Keller on the getaway day. I’m glad Sonny is pitching, because I’m actually less optimistic the offense will show up on this day than on Monday. Because I’m getting flashbacks to that first series when the Cardinals couldn’t score in 13 innings.
They did better the second time around – they won the game for one thing. But I’m glad I’m at work whenever the Cardinals play Wednesday or Thursday day games, because it does not seem like the offense shows up. Again, I’m probably letting that initial Pirates game impact my opinion here.