TOO-FREE SWINGERS
The team’s walk rate was down in the first month of the season, and as a result so was its onbase percentage — a woeful .290 as May began Friday
April was hardly a walk in the park for the Pirates. They drew five walks Wednesday but still closed the month dead last in the majors in unintentional walks with 41. Bryce Harper, the Washington Nationals center fielder, had 22.
In 2014, the Pirates walked more than any other National League team (520) and finished second in on-base percentage (.330), another metric used to measure plate discipline.
This April, the Pirates’ team OBP was 40 points lower, and it took getting 19 runners aboard in the final game to climb out of last place.
“It’s a short sample, and I’m not one to chase trends,” manager Clint Hurdle said.
The Pirates were the best fastball-hitting team in the NL last year, he added, so opposing pitchers have approached them differently, with more off-speed stuff.
“We’re going to have to show the discipline to make those pitches be in the zone,” he said. “Maybe we’ve gotten outside of that a little bit.”
Hurdle called his team “streaky” so far. The offense has been boom-orbust, winning 12 of 22 April games but getting shut out four times, half as many times as in all of 2014.
“Right now we’re getting what we get, and we can’t throw a fit,” Hurdle said. “Trying to score runs when we can, and trying to string consecutive good at-bats together.”
Entering Friday, the Pirates’ walk rate was 5.2 percent. The league average is 8 percent.
Over a six-game stretch in mid-April, Pirates hitters made 165 consecutive plate appearances without drawing a walk. At the time, Hurdle credited the opposing pitchers.
To be honest, shortstop Jordy Mercer said, “not only are guys throwing their fastballs for strikes, but all their off-speed stuff, too. It’s made us have to be aggressive.”
Still, Hurdle and Mercer admitted, Pirates hitters have been chasing pitches off the plate more than usual. And part of the disparity could be attributed to the lineup’s makeup.
Gone are Ike Davis (14.4 percent walk rate in 2014), Russell Martin (12.8) and Travis Snider (9.5). Martin had more walks than any Pirate but Andrew McCutchen in 2013 and 2014.
Here to stay are a few free swingers. Leadoff man Josh Harrison’s .250 OBP in April was worst among Pirates starters. McCutchen was the only Pirates hitter to walk more than five times. Sweet-swinging Starling Marte walked just twice.
That’s what made Wednesday night, the final game of the month, such a surprise.
Marte stepped to the plate in the second inning against Chicago Cubs righthander Kyle Hendricks, who had walked just one hitter over his first three starts, and walked on six pitches, the Pirates’ first walk in three days. Two batters later, Jung Ho Kang took a free pass.
In the fourth, Hendricks got ahead of Marte, 0-2, with two outs and the bases loaded. Marte fouled off two pitches and watched a sinker, curveball, changeup and another sinker fall just off the plate. He walked, scoring the deciding run in a 6-1 win.
“Once we get in a groove and things start rolling, I think it’ll all play out,” Mercer said. “Things will change and guys will start getting on base in a much different way.”
Inside baseball
Kansas City Royals righthander Edinson Volquez, who spent 2014 with the Pirates, served a five-game suspension this week for his involvement in a brawl with the Chicago White Sox last week.
The Royals and White Sox have plunked each other 26 times over the past two seasons. The only clubs that have harmed each other more? Pirates and Milwaukee Brewers, 27.
The brawl, which saw four Royals suspended, was the latest in a string of early season tiffs between pitchers and hitters. Asked if players simply have shorter fuses these days, Hurdle said, “That’s part of it.”
“I think batters this year are getting hit at an astronomical rate,” he said.
According to Hurdle, teams are trying to pitch inside now more than ever. If it’s not something these pitchers have done much, they won’t be good at it initially.
“It’s kind of like a turf war, the batter’s box and the pitcher’s mound and you’re trying to win a game,” Hurdle said. “At the same time, this fighting part of it obviously has escalated to an area where I’m sure we’re going to hear something from somebody about it sometime soon.”