Series Preview: Seattle Mariners vs. Pittsburgh Pirates

The series with the Royals lived up to the frustrating recent history between the M’s and their rivals from the AL Central. Unsurprisingly, the offense dried up as soon as the team returned to T-Mobile Park which makes this upcoming series against the Pirates all the more important. It’s the last chance Seattle has to bank some wins before a really challenging road trip takes the team into the All-Star break next week.

The Pirates are in a pretty terrible place as a franchise because they have an ownership group that completely refuses to invest in the team. The presence of Paul Skenes on their roster and a handful of other promising pitching prospects coming through the pipeline should be the opening of a competitive window, but they’re stuck muddling through another lost season. They’re neither rebuilding or competing, but simply existing as a line item on their owner’s ledger. Mariner fans should be very familiar with that experience. To their credit, Pittsburgh is currently in the midst of their best stretch of the season; they’ve won six games in a row and have shut out their opponents in three straight games.

While most of the attention is centered on Skenes, the reason why the Pirates haven’t been able to build a competitive roster around him is because the lineup is pretty punchless. Andrew McCutchen is rightfully adored in Pittsburgh and could probably be considered a franchise legend at this point, but when he’s the headlining acquisition during the offseason, something has gone very wrong (and he wasn’t even a new acquisition, he simply signed another one-year deal after his last one-year deal expired). Oneil Cruz, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Henry Davis, and Nick Gonzales all had some prospect hype as they made their way through the farm system, but those four have developed into useful role players rather than franchise cornerstones. Bryan Reynolds is probably the most well known position player, but even he’s struggled the past few years after his peak in 2021-22.

Probable Pitchers

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Bailey Falter has one elite skill: his release extension is 7.2 feet, comfortably sitting in the top 5% in baseball. That allows his fastballs to play up over their below average velocity. Combined with an extreme over-the-top delivery, his mechanics present a pretty difficult challenge for batters to overcome. The rest of his pitch arsenal is pretty lackluster, however. His three secondary offerings don’t generate all that many swings and misses leaving him at the whim of contact suppression. When that’s working for him like it was in May — he allowed just four runs total during his six starts that month — he can be very successful. When all that contact results in batted balls finding grass, he can look very mediocre.

With Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, and Bubba Chandler earning all the prospect praise in Pittsburgh’s farm system, Mike Burrows has gone a bit unhearalded. He was ranked 15th on the Pirates preseason prospect list and has been a fixture in their rotation since being recalled on May 22. Burrows has two things working for him right now: a changeup with an elite 45.9% whiff rate and a slider with a .255 xwOBA allowed. Those two secondary pitches are carrying nearly his entire value right now because his fastball is extremely hittable. What that means, practically, is that his strikeout-to-walk ratio is an excellent 3.5, but his HR/9 is an unsustainable 1.82.

Andrew Heaney signed with the Pirates this offseason and he’s capably filled the veteran innings-eater role for the young ballclub. His fastball’s velocity has fallen another tick after a similar dip last year. Facing the inevitable march of Father Time, he’s made a ton of changes to the rest of his pitch mix. Instead of featuring his signature slider as his most commonly used secondary offering, he’s switched it up to his changeup. He’s also added a sinker to his repertoire and continues to tinker with a curveball that he reintroduced this year. The top line results look pretty much the same from his two years with Texas, but his strikeout rate has dipped to the lowest it’s been since his rookie year back in 2015.

There have been some conflicting reports about whether or not Paul Skenes would be scheduled to pitch on Sunday, but he threw on Tuesday and the Pirates had an off day on Thursday. If he was going to pitch, Pittsburgh would have to skip the regular turn of one of the pitchers listed above, and as of writing time, no starter was officially announced for Sunday’s game. Obviously, if Skenes does get moved up to start Sunday, his matchup against George Kirby becomes appointment viewing.

The Big Picture:

The Mariners couldn’t take advantage of the Astros loss in Colorado on Thursday afternoon and stayed seven games back in the AL West. They might have a few more opportunities to gain some ground as Houston travels to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers this weekend. Both the Angels and Rangers won their respective series earlier this week. This weekend, the Angels travel to Toronto to face the red hot Blue Jays while the Rangers head to San Diego.