Brault a bright spot amid 2-0 loss to Cubs
If you wanted to make the Pirates’ 2-0 loss to the Chicago Cubs Saturday at PNC Park about the present, it wouldn’t be terribly difficult.
Three times they loaded the bases and (obviously) came away with zero runs. They went 0 for 12 with runners in scoring position. They left 11 runners on base.
As manager Clint Hurdle said, “That pretty much wraps up the story for [Saturday].”
Hurdle isn’t wrong, but there’s more to what transpired here during an otherwise forgettable game.
Don’t look now, but
Steven Brault is making a serious case to begin the 2020 season in the Pirates starting rotation after adopting a fastball-heavy approach and seemingly gaining confidence with every start.
On Saturday, Brault set career-highs in innings pitched (7) and strikeouts (8) while enjoying what Hurdle called Brault’s “best performance in the major leagues.”
Brault walked one and hit one, but he threw firstpitch strikes to 16 of 24 batters and had just two threeball counts. The lefthanded hitters in the Cubs lineup went 0 for 7 against the 27-year-old southpaw.
“A strong performance,” Hurdle said. “He was really getting after it out there.”
In a unique way, too. Although Brault said he can’t completely pinpoint when this change in his approach started, he has started to shift his pitch mix to a ton of fastballs.
On Saturday, that meant throwing just seven sliders and four changeups among his 82 pitches (57 strikes), a rate of 87 percent divided between four- (72 percent) and two-seam (15 percent) fastballs.
Granted they’re much different pitchers, but in his gem on Friday night, Joe Musgrove used his four-seamer, cutter and sinker just 61 percent of the time, the rest of the time relying on his curveball, slider and changeup.
Brault’s approach is definitely unique in baseball today, where spin pitches are everything, but it’s been working. Brault has a 2.58 ERA over his past 10 starts.
“I feel really good about where I’m at,” Brault said.
What Brault has done presents an interesting situation for the Pirates rotation.
If he continues on this path and the Pirates get more starts from Musgrove like the one they did Friday, that could be something to build on for next season. Especially when you consider Mitch Keller is going to get the rest of the regular season to develop, and Chris Archer has been better in the second half.
Due up next for a little bit of an improvement is probably Trevor Williams, who has allowed 14 earned runs over his past three starts, with an OPS-against of .977 since the All-Star break.
“When somebody has a good start before you, it’s really easy to be inspired,” Brault said. “We need to try and keep that going.”
The bases-loaded flameouts happened in the first (with one out), the fifth (no outs) and the seventh (two outs), as the first six hitters in the Pirates lineup failed to pick up the timely hit.
Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant gave his team a 1-0 lead with a solo home run to lead off the seventh inning. Facing Brault, who had allowed two homers in his past 54⅓ innings, Bryant lofted one into the seats in left for his 25th homer of the season. Bryant now is hitting .571 (8 for 14) lifetime against Brault.
Chicago picked up its second run in the eighth inning, when Elias Diaz chucked a pickoff throw to third into the outfield, allowing Ian Happ to score easily. Hurdle later said that it was a designed play, and Colin Moran was late getting to the bag.
But as frustrating as that might’ve been, and as encouraging as what Brault did was, the story for Saturday was the inability to score with the bases loaded.
The Pirates (51-71) now are hitting .225 with the bases loaded. Only four teams are worse.
“We had two guys blister balls in the infield [in the first inning],” Hurdle said. “After that, we didn’t get the at-bats we needed.”
Around the horn
The Pirates’ stretch of 64 consecutive games with an extra-base hit came to a close on Friday, and they generated only one Saturday. … Now 7-26 since the All-Star break, the Pirates will look to win a second consecutive series — something they haven’t done since the first week of July — Sunday.