CHICAGO -- Quick. Off the top of your head, can you guess how many members of the Pirates' opening day bullpen are still in the bullpen?
Think you have it? Give up? There were nine guys in the bullpen to start.
Time's up. It's three: Richard Rodriguez, Nik Turley and Dovydas Neverauskas.
Kyle Crick, Nick Burdi, Michael Feliz and Clay Holmes are on the injured list, though Crick is joining the club on their road trip this week, signaling he should be returning. Robbie Erlin was designated for assignment, and JT Brubaker was moved into the rotation. And that's to say nothing of closer Keone Kela missing the opening few weeks because of coronavirus issues.
Every team goes through bullpen overturn, but losing two-thirds in the opening weeks of the season is drastic. As a result, the Pirates have had to go to their alternate training site in Altoona, Pa. for fresh arms more times than they wanted to.
The results of those call-ups have been mixed, but the two best have been righty Geoff Hartlieb and southpaw Sam Howard. Going based off of their 2019 results, neither seemed like particularity exciting depth options entering the year. Hartlieb got his first taste of the majors last season, but posted a 9.00 ERA. Howard had earned a couple calls to the majors with the Rockies the last two years, but they exposed him to waivers last October, which is how the Pirates acquired him.
Despite that, and not making the team out of summer camp, both have been pretty reliable hands out of the bullpen this year.
Even though he was dinged for a 337-foot homer Sunday, Hartlieb is still the owner of a 3.00 ERA, a 55.9% ground ball rate through 12 innings pitched, and has stranded nine of the 11 base runners he's inherited.
Howard has a 3.72 ERA through his first 9.2 innings, and has struck out one-third of his batters faced. Going by Baseball Savant's data, he's in the top 15% of pitchers in strikeout and whiff rate this year.
Neither screams "late inning reliever" at the moment, but those are two good guys to have in the bullpen. The bullpen needs good pitchers, and these two have bounced back from shaky starts this season very nicely.
They've also done it in pretty similar fashion. Here's how.
THROW YOUR BEST STUFF MORE
Pitching coach Oscar Marin is highly regarded for his analytics work, but sometimes that work is as simple as telling a pitcher that they should throw their best pitch more. Both Hartlieb and Howard are doing that.
To continue reading, log into your account:
