The Pittsburgh Pirates have struggled over the past few weeks. Could their young starters help save their season?
The Pittsburgh Pirates have entered a tailspin over the last couple weeks, going 3-12 in their last 15 games. Immediately before the rough stretch, the Pirates looked like they were going to at least compete with the Cubs down the stretch. In the past couple weeks, the Pirates have lost their ace Gerrit Cole to the DL, which could actually turn out to be better for the Pirates down the road. If Cole’s relative struggles compared to his performance in 2015 are due to an injury in 2016, going on the DL and fixing his issues could really help the Pirates in the long run.
However, the long run is not all that important for the Pirates if they fall out of contention while waiting for Cole to return it becomes pointless. The Pirates offense hasn’t been the problem at all, ranking 7th in Major League Baseball in runs scored. The pitching, however, has hurt the Pirates time and time again, especially during this current rough stretch.
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The Pirates pitching staff ranks 11th worst in Major League Baseball in ERA with 4.26. None of the teams with worse ERA have more wins than the Pirates, with one team matching the number of wins. Giving up nearly 5 runs a game puts a lot of pressure on the offense to perform well every single day. Without Cole as the ace, the Pirates rotation suffers even more. The need for one or two consistent starters in the rotation is clear. Simply put, the Pirates pitching has been the key factor in hurting their playoff chances this season.
Despite having such an underwhelming pitching staff, the Pirates have two possible pitching prospect saviors who could at the very least keep the Pirates in contention while waiting for Gerrit Cole to return. When Cole does return, these two pitchers could remain with the team and create a rotation that could cause issues in the dog days of August and possibly in the playoffs. Those two pitchers are Jameson Taillon and Tyler Glasnow, two pitchers that have been in the Pirates system for a few years and garnered respect from national prospect writers and lists. Going into the 2016 season, Baseball Prospectus had Tyler Glasnow as the 11th top prospect in the country and Jameson Taillon the 51st best prospect.
Although Glasnow was ranked higher on prospect rankings, Jameson Taillon was the player to receive the call to the big leagues first. He only has two starts under his belt, but he has lived up to the hype so far. He gave up 3 runs over 6 innings pitched with 3 strikeouts and 2 walks in his first start, which was not a bad debut performance. He improved tremendously on that performance in his second start, taking a no-hitter into the 7th inning against the Mets. He finished the game with 8 innings pitched, no earned runs, 5 strikeouts, and 1 walk.
Taillon has been impressive in his short time in the major leagues, but Glasnow has the capability to be even better. It is unclear when he will make his debut, but most likely it will be in the near future. In AAA Indianapolis, Glasnow has pitched 71 innings with an ERA of 1.90 and 86 strikeouts. His K% is an impressive 30.3% and his K/BB is a very good 2.39. With numbers like that and a clear need for pitching at the Major League level, his call-up to the big leagues is less a matter of “if” and more a question of “when.”
Taillon and Glasnow are two very talented young pitchers, no doubt about it. The question is whether or not they can handle the pressure, as two rookie pitchers, to hold this team together. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a 22 year old Glasnow and 24 year old Taillon. However, if they are able to handle the pressure and pitch as well as they have to date, the Pirates rotation might just be able to compete with some of the ridiculous pitching staffs in the National League.
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Perhaps Taillon and Glasnow won’t be team “saviors,” but at the very least they can keep this team from falling too far behind in a very tough division and NL Wild Card race.