After strong finish to season, Pirates focus on building a 'deep, talented' starting rotation

Two weeks before the season ended, Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitchers had an informal staff meeting to talk about how they have performed and how they wanted to finish the season.

“Playoffs were out of reach,” said Pirates right-hander Joe Musgrove, the Opening Day starter. “A lot of our goals had become unattainable. So we shifted gears, and we reset our goals — something realistic, something that we could really accomplish in these last couple weeks — and it was to improve our games mentally, physically, game-planning. Just every aspect of what we’re doing and trying to really improve on it and build something strong going into the offseason, something that we can continue to work on and build for next season.”

The results were mostly spectacular: Over the final 13 games, six starters combined for a 1.94 ERA with 78 strikeouts, allowing 46 hits (3.5 a game) and 29 walks (2.2). The Pirates won six of those games and lost five others by one run.

Once the Pirates’ pitchers got into a groove, it was almost as if it was contagious and spread throughout the staff. Mitch Keller didn’t allow a hit over 11 innings in his final two starts, although he did give up eight walks in his last outing. Steven Brault followed a two-hit complete game with a two-hit, seven-inning shutout. Musgrove twice notched double digits in strikeouts, fanning 11 against St. Louis and 10 at Cleveland.

“That’s exactly it,” Musgrove said. “It feels like we’re all competing with each other to see who can top one another with their performance.”

It was a strong finish for a staff that started the season as perhaps the team’s biggest question mark, and set the tone for a spring training competition for those five spots in the starting rotation.

Pirates manager Derek Shelton credited pitching coach Oscar Marin and bullpen coach Justin Meccage for not only prioritizing pitch counts to protect the arms of their starters from injury but convincing them to buy in to a new pitching philosophy.

“I think part of the message in a short period of time really started to sink in, in terms of the pitch usage, how we were going to use our stuff, when we were going to use it and, if we were looking at this over 162 games, no one would think anything of it,” Shelton said. “But the fact that it starts happening or starts showing in the signs of work in games 45 in a 60-game season, then everybody wants to talk about it. But I think when you have a group of pitchers and a pitching coach and a bullpen coach all coming together after two split spring trainings, we started to see the message really sink in.”

The Pirates were without their top two pitchers this season, as Jameson Taillon was recovering from a second Tommy John surgery and Chris Archer opted for neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome surgery. Brault and Chad Kuhl were returning from injuries, so they pitched in piggyback to stretch out their arms for more innings. JT Brubaker bounced from the bullpen to the starting rotation when Musgrove and Keller went on the injured list.

“We’re really encouraged by the progress and the performance that some of those guys showed down the stretch, adjustments guys have been working on starting to come out on the field,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. “That needs to continue. That’s clear in our exit meetings with the pitchers. They seem very clear on what they need to go into the offseason with and keep improving on. So we need to add to that. I’m more focused on adding to that than being anxious about how to make the numbers work.”

The Pirates used eight starting pitchers this season — with Derek Holland starting five games before moving to the bullpen and Cody Ponce coming from the alternate training site in Altoona to start three games — and could have 10 or more seeking a spot in the rotation next season. The Pirates could part ways with Archer, who is scheduled to earn $11 million but has a $250,000 buyout, and possibly even non-tender Trevor Williams, who enters his second year of arbitration after going 2-8 with a 6.18 ERA, 1.57 WHIP and giving up a team-high 15 home runs.

To Cherington, adding to the numbers is more of a necessity than a luxury. His focus is on building a “deep, talented pitching staff.”

“Look, if we’re sitting here at the end of March and knock on wood,” Cherington said, tapping his knuckles on the podium for emphasis, “we’re at a normal spring training and ‘Shelty’ and Oscar are pulling their hair out because they’ve got eight to 10 good options for the rotation, then I’m going to be really excited about that. That would be a really good outcome for us. So that’s my hope, that we have lots of good options for starting games next year with the Pirates.”