Of Opponents and Kryptonite

Last night, the Pirates played the Minnesota Twins. The teams do not have a long history with one another, as their rivalry is a function of the recent phenomenon of interleague play. In 1997, the Pirates were 1-2 against the Twins. In 1998, they were 2-1. They were 1-2 again in 1999, 2-1 in 2000, and 1-2 in 2001. That was the end of annual series between the clubs. Since then, the Twins swept three games in 2006 and took two of three in 2009. The Pirates were 2-1 in 2012, the last time the two teams played.

So in 24 games spread over 18 seasons, the Pirates were 10-14 against the Twins entering play last night. They've scored 109 runs (4.5 per game) with a .762 OPS and given up 112 runs (4.7 per game) with a 4.22 ERA. 

But last night wasn't just the Pirates playing the Twins, it was Pirates starting pitcher Francisco Liriano facing the first major league team for which he played. He was signed by the San Francisco Giants in 2000 but traded to the Twins after the 2003 season. After six games in Minnesota in 2005, Liriano, then 22, was a sensation as a rookie in 2006. He was named to the All-Star team and at the end of July was 12-2 with a 1.96 ERA and 137 strikeouts in 115 innings. That year Twins pitcher Johan Santana won his second Cy Young Award, but at the end of July, he was just the second-best lefty starter on the club (12-5, 3.11 ERA, 160 strikeouts in 156.1 innings).

Then Liriano missed a start with elbow soreness. He lasted four innings, allowing ten hits and four runs, in a start against Detroit on August 7, then went on the disabled list with a sprained ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his throwing elbow. Even if you don't know the Francisco Liriano story, you can probably guess where this is going. He returned for one start, against Oakland in September. left after two innings, his UCL torn, and had Tommy John surgery. 

Liriano was never the same as a Twin. From 2008 to 2012, he started 110 games, compiling a 37-47 record with a 4.69 ERA. His ERA was 42nd among 48 American League pitchers with at least 500 innings pitched during that stretch. He was traded to the White Sox at the trade deadline in 2012, became a free agent, and became, in 2013, Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage's latest reclamation project.

Liriano entered play last night with a 2.96 ERA, the 15th best in the league. He had a 1-3 record, but that was a product of lousy run support, as the Bucs had scored just 2.3 runs per 27 outs with Liriano on the mound, the seventh-lowest support in the league.

And he got lit up yesterday. Two innings, five hits (including two homers), two walks, one hit batter, a wild pitch, seven runs, all earned. His ERA went from 2.96 to 4.05 over the course of two innings.

So, is Liriano's first team, the Twins, his Kryptonite*? Does he prove Tom Wolfe's point, that you can't go home anymore**?

Hardly. Small sample size caveats and all that, Liriano faced his former teammates twice after getting traded to Chicago in 2012, and he performed well: 2.77 ERA over 13 innings, during which he allowed just 11 baserunners (five hits, six walks), striking out 17. Among the nine opponents that year against whom he had at least seven innings pitched, he had easily his best ERA and best WHIP against Minnesota. 

So the problem last night was clearly not that he was pressing, seeking some sort of revenge or something against the club that traded him away. The time for that was in 2012, and he dominated his former club.

But this got me thinking: How have the Pirates pitchers fared against their first team? Given the club's propensity for home-grown talent,t he list if short:

• Starter A.J. Burnett: Started with the Marlins, against whom he's 2-2 with a 3.22 ERA and 1.459 WHIP (career averages: 3.99, 1.319) in six starts 
• Starter Vance Worley: Started with the Phillies, against whom he's 0-1 with a 2.25 ERA and 2.250 WHIP (career averages: 3.78, 1.400) in one start
• Reliever Mark Melancon: Started with the Yankees, against whom he has one save, a 4.32 ERA and 0.720 WHIP (career averages: 2.95, 1.112) in six games

And that's it. Every other Pirates pitcher is either home-grown (Cole, Hughes, LaFramboise, Locke, Sadler, Watson), or has never faced his original team (Bastardo [Phillies], Carminero [Marlins], Liz [Orioles], Scahill [Rockies]). 

So tonight, Pirates starter Jeff Locke has no reason to be particularly good or bad against the Twins, as he's spent his entire career with Pittsburgh and has never faced Minnesota. On the other hand, Twins starter Mike Pelfrey, in six appearances against Pittsburgh, has a 3-2 record but a 4.78 ERA and 1.407 WHIP, about in line with his career averages of 4.51 and 1.480, respectively. No Kryptonite-based advantage here.

*The term Kryptonite is commonly misused. It's come to mean a person's weakness, e.g. New York Post, last Nov. 1: "Cold weather is [Peyton] Manning's Kryptonite...exemplified by his 8-11 career record and thoroughly mediocre 82.1 rating in games played in temperatures below 40." True, the otherwise indestructible Superman is vulnerable to Kryptonite, but what makes it different from Peyton Manning's aversion to cold weather is that Kryptonite was formed from exploded pieces of Superman's home planet, Krypton. So the analogy here, to Liriano's original team, is more apt that most that you'll see.

**OK, technically, Liriano's home is the Dominican Republic, not Minnesota, and I imagine he's welcome there.

38, Not Special

The Pirates are now 38 games into their 2015 season. Their record is 18-20. They're tied with the Cincinnati Reds for third in the division, 7.5 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals and 3.5 behind the Chicago Cubs. They were above .500, 17-16, the morning of May 13, half a game behind the Cubs, but then they lost two in a row to a pretty bad Phillies team and two straight to the Cubs. The problems about which I've written persist:

• They are 13th in the 15-team National League in both on base percentage (.300) and slugging percentage (.366). They're third to last in scoring at 3.8 runs per game because they don't get batters on (.282 on base percentage with the bases empty, 13th in the league). They're nothing special with runners in scoring position (.263 batting average, eighth in the league), but it's the inability to get runners on base in the first place that stands out.
• Measured by park-adjusted OPS, the Pirates are below average at catcher, first base, shortstop, third base, and right field. 
• I'm not ready to say that Andrew McCutchen is fixed. Yes, Pirates center fielders are above average this year, but that's partly because in three games filling in for McCutchen, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco are a combined 7-for-10 with a 1.727 OPS. Yes, McCutchen has a .279/.366/.443 slash line in May after a wretched .194/.302/.333 April, but this is Andrew McCutchen we're talking about here; he hit .318/.406/.505 in his career in May going into the season. As I pointed out a week and a half ago, Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs wrote a great breakdown of McCutchen's season, and he noted that McCutchen isn't shifting his weight from his right to left leg during his swing as much as in the past (presumably because of left knee problems), and as a result, he's not hitting with power to left field. That's still pretty much the case. Below, courtesy of Brooks Baseball, is McCutchen's spray chart from May 2014 and May 2015. As you can see, he's still not getting base hits to left field. (The circles are mine.)

• They've been saved by their pitching. Their 3.16 starters' ERA is tied with the Mets for best in the league, and the 3.14 relievers' ERA is sixth. The rotation after A.J. Burnett (prediction: at age 38, he's not going to maintain a 1.38 ERA), Gerrit Cole, and Francisco Liriano has been shaky, and closer Mark Melancon has allowed at least one baserunner in eleven of his 16 one-inning relief appearances, or 69%, compared to a league average of 58%. Overall, though, the pitching's carried the team.
• But the defense has been a disappointment. By one advanced fielding metric (derived from scouts watching every fielding play by every team), Defensive Runs Saved, the Pirates are tenth in the league this year after finishing second in 2013 and fourth last year.

So, all told, it's been a story of weak offense, a lack of performance from the team's superstar, and a strong pitching staff stymied somewhat by a lackluster defense. The result has been the club's 18-20 record after 38 games. In Pittsburgh's long history, this has happened 16 times before. Some of the teams that started 18-20 were bad: the 2008 Pirates were 18-20 after 38 games en route to a 67-95 season, and the 1998 and 2000 clubs, also 18-20 at the start of the season, were only two games better. But the 1979 Pirates started 18-20 as well, and they were world champions. If I were clever, I'd insert a Sister Sledge joke here.

Next Up: The Minnesota Twins

How Are They Doing Lately? Over the past 30 days, the Twins are 17-11, the third best record in the American League. Picked by many (including me) to be the worst team in their division, and very possibly the league, they're second to the 21-7 Astros as the most surprising team in the league over the past month.

What's Going Right? Their starting pitchers, wretched last year (a cover-your-eyes 5.06 ERA), are seventh in the league in ERA, 3.88, over the past month. After a slow start offensively, the Twins have scored the second-most runs in the league over the past 30 days. They're first in batting average (.275), fifth in on base percentage (.329), and ninth in slugging percentage (.410).

What's Going Wrong? When you see a team with the Twins' batting numbers, you can conclude that they get a lot of singles but not much else. Over the past 30 days, they offense is twelfth in the league with a 7% walk rate and they've hit the fourth-fewest homers. They've scored a lot of runs because of a league-leading .336 batting average on balls in play that's almost certainly unsustainable.

When I wrote my rant about the Twins in February, I complained that their strategy of seeking pitchers who induce contact rather than pitchers who get strikeouts is out of sync with contemporary baseball. They're last in the league, by far, in strikeout percentage (14% of batters faced; the league average is nearly 20%).

The bullpen ERA over the past 30 days is 4.14, fourth worst in the American League. 

Who's Hot? Second baseman Brian Dozier (.276/.376/.524 slash line), third baseman Trevor Plouffe (.295/.374/.453) and right fielder Torii Hunter (.294/.342/.529, six home runs) have been the offensive stars over the past 30 days. Starters Kyle Gibson and Mike Pelfrey have combined for a 2.42 ERA over eleven starts, though with a strikeout rate so low (7.6% of batters faced) that it seems unsustainable. Closer Glenn Perkins is 11-for-11 in save attempts with a 1.42 ERA over the past month.

Who's Not? Nobody on offense really stinks of late, though the Twins have gotten a lack of sock from the traditional power positions of DH (primarily Kennys Vargas, two home runs) and first base (primarily Joe Mauer, none). Over the past 30 days, Perkins, Ryan Pressly, and Blaine Boyer have combined for a 1.22 ERA over 37 innings. The rest of the bullpen has a 6.30 ERA over 50 innings. 

What's the Outlook? You could probably tell from the tone of this that I don't expect the Twins to remain this good. The two-game series with the Twins at PNC Park starting tomorrow could be an opportunity for the Pirates to recover from their recent 1-4 run as they prepare to host another surprisingly good team, the Mets, over the weekend.