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Playoff Preview: The Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Jake Arrieta

By Eric Roseberry

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The Pittsburgh Pirates just won 98 games. It’s the most games they’ve won in a season since 1991.They finished 2015 with the second best record in baseball. That’s a regular season the Pirates should be proud of.

Yet, Wednesday night they will face one of the best pitchers in baseball in a winner-take-all Wild Card game. Oh yeah, the team they’re facing also has the third best record in baseball.

On the surface this doesn’t really seem fair. However, under the current playoff format this is the reality the Pirates face. Without question they have a hard road ahead of them, but what are the chances that they could win their first world championship since 1979? Could this finally be the year that the World Series trophy comes back to Pittsburgh?

We will begin to get an answer to that question on Wednesday night. If the Pirates can get by the Cubs they have as good of a shot as anyone to win it all. However, getting by the Cubs is going to be a tall task. Specifically, beating Jake Arrieta has been almost impossible this season (it has been since July 25). So how do the Pirates stack up in this Wild Card matchup?

Offense

When you look at the Pirates offense compared to other National League teams it looks good. wRC+ is a stat that “weights each offensive action and controls for league and park effects.” It attempts to give different values to each outcome “rather than treating all hits or times on base equally.” In essence this stat tries to boil down a team’s offensive production into one number. By this statistic the Pirates had the third best offense in the NL this season trailing only the Giants and Dodgers.

The Pirates offense scored the fourth most runs in the National League in 2015, which might be surprising looking at their power numbers. They actually finished the year 10th in the NL in home runs and 12th in isolated slugging. What the lineup lacks in power it made up for in consistency. The Pirates feature five hitters who had above average offensive seasons (Cervelli, Alvarez, Walker, Marte, McCutchen), and two hitters who were around leave average (Ramirez and Polanco). Jordy Mercer is the only starter on the team who offers significantly below average offensive production. Simply put, there aren’t a lot of glaring holes in this batting order.

One major loss the Pirates are dealing with is the injury to 3B Jung Ho Kang. Kang finished the year as the second most productive hitter in the lineup by OPS+, and would have been a nice option to have Wednesday night. This is a subplot that might add a little more fuel to the fire Wednesday as Kang’s season was ended against the Cubs less than a month ago.

While the Pirates offense has been good this season it hasn’t been good at all against Jake Arrieta. Yes, I know this could be said for most teams and we’re dealing with small sample sizes. However, Arrieta started five games against this Pirates this season and finished with this line:

5 G, 36 IP, 18 H, 3 ER, 33 K, 5 BB, 0.75 ERA

Arrieta’s 0.75 ERA against the Pirates is his lowest ERA  against a team he started more than two games against this season. The Pirates were able to beat an Arrieta-led Cubs team on May 17. However, in that game he only gave up 1 run through 7, and the Pirates did the rest of their damage against the Cubs’ bullpen. That’s the most likely scenario for a Pittsburgh win Wednesday night.

It’s worth noting, Pirates fans have shown the ability to rattle the opposing team’s best pitcher in the playoffs. Unfortunately, Arrieta doesn’t roll off the tongue like Cueto.

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Pitching

Luckily for the Pirates, they’re also throwing their ace on Wednesday night. They need to keep this game close in order to have a chance of winning, and Gerrit Cole is the right man to have on the hill in that regard. Cole finished this season with 208 innings pitched and a 2.60 ERA. It’s obvious Cole had a great season, but how did he fare against the Cubs this year? Here is Cole’s line from those starts:

4 G, 25.1 IP, 20 H, 6 ER, 32 K, 4 BB, 2.13 ERA

Cole wasn’t as good against the Cubs this season as Arrieta was against the Pirates, but he was still very successful. What’s obvious is that runs are going to be at a premium in this matchup. The Pirates know how difficult it’s going to be to score off of Arrieta. However, if they can keep it close they also have the best bullpen in the NL by ERA at their disposal (the Cubs bullpen finished fourth). Getting a couple of runs early could be crucial to Pittsburgh’s success on Wednesday.

Closing Thoughts

This game has everything that you want from October baseball. Two of the best pitchers in the game will be squaring off. You have two of the most successful teams in the league going head-to-head. This game features two great fan bases who have been waiting expectantly for playoff success from their team.

Unfortunately, we’re only going to get to see these teams play one time. No disrespect to any of the other NL playoff teams, but this easily could have been an NLCS matchup. Both fan bases should enjoy the lead-up to Wednesday because one of these teams will be heading home early. If Jake Arrieta is anything like the Jake Arrieta we’ve seen over the past few months, then that doesn’t bode well for the Pirates.

At least we know this. Jake isn’t lacking for confidence in the lead up to this game.

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