Gerrit Cole, Edison Volquez, and Charlie Morton will be the three pitchers that I will breakdown for this post. This is a good variety because this year Cole was dominant, Volquez surprised us all, and Morton was inconsistent.
Gerrit Cole is a solidified ace, and the undoubted #1 of the Pirates pitching staff. He has electric stuff with a 95+ mph fastball, a good slider, and a nast change-up. This year, Cole went 11-5 with a 3.65 era, averaging 1 strikeout/inning with 138 in 138 innings pitched. Cole suffered from the injury bug a bit this year, otherwise he would have had more innings pitched.
Edison Volquez was the surprise of the Pirates staff this year. Arguably the Bucs most consistent arm, Volquez went 13-7 with a team leading 3.04 era in a team leading 192.2 innings pitched. In my opinion Volquez should have won comeback player of the year this season, but the voters must have thought otherwise.
Lastly is Charlie Morton. I 've said for the past few years the Morton has the best pitches on the team, and I still firmly believe that. He just suffers from wildness and bad fielding with all the ground balls he gets at times. Morton went 6-12 this season despite having a respectable 3.72 era. This just shows the lack of run support Morton recieves. Morton also suffered from the injury bug this year, spending some time on the disabled list with a hip injury. He was still able to compile 157.1 innings pitched though.
Overall, I give the Pirates starting pitching an ***A. Thier pitching coach Ray Searage is a mastermind and he continues to get the most out of lackluster names. The Pirates had quite a number of injuries this year and they were able to mange that as well. I t will be interesitng to see if they can once angain do it next year.
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| Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage (left) with Pirates picher Edison Volquez (right) photo courtsey of the Bradeton Herald |
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