Familiarity breeds trouble for Pirates relief pitcher Chris Stratton

A look at his 2022 numbers ould suggest a noticeable regression for Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Chris Stratton compared to how solid he has been for the club since arriving early in the 2019 season.

That’s not lost on Stratton, who, with a bit over three years under his belt, is the team’s current longest-tenured reliever.

Stratton owns a 5-4 record and 5.09 ERA in 40 games. Compare that to last season, when Stratton wa steady out of the bullpen, going 7-1 (leading the Pirates in wins) with a 3.63 ERA.

In 2020, he ended the season with 3.90 ERA.

“Has it been frustrating? Absolutely,” Stratton said. “Would I like to pitch better? For sure.”

The 2022 season also brought about a change in responsibilities for Stratton, who in spring training was projected to split closing duties with David Bednar. Previously, Stratton had pitched for the Pirates primarily as a middle reliever.

Stratton’s ERA lingered well north of 4.00 for the first months of this season, but June proved to be a particularly brutal period for him, defined by a pounding at the hands of the Atlanta Braves on June 11. He allowed five earned runs on three hits without recording an out.

The outing was Stratton’s worst with the Pirates. (He surrendered five runs in a relief appearance in August 2019 but managed to get through two full innings.)

Stratton’s struggles have brought manager Derek Shelton, pitching coach Oscar Marin and bullpen coach Justin Meccage back to the drawing board. For starters, Stratton and the Pirates acknowledged that, after multiple seasons with the team, NL Central batters simply are more dialed in against his repertoire.

“With all the information nowadays, teams are able to kind of hone in on what guys are doing,” Meccage said. “It’s our responsibility to battle against that when we feel like we need to. That’s where we’re at with Stratton right now, trying to figure out what that fix might look like on teams that we see a lot.”

Stratton (and pitchers in general) were not helped in that regard by the condensed covid-19 season in 2020, which featured 40 of 60 games played against divisional opponents.

“I think changing the repertoire of what you use against (hitters), that tends to happen once you spend three or four years in the same division,” Shelton said. “The thing that comes back, if you go back to covid, we were (only playing) in our division, and that was it.

“You get guys that get a bunch of at-bats against a (pitcher), so the way we attack that is just maybe making sure that we change up the repertoire a little bit.”

Per Statcast, Stratton throws his primary pitch, a four-seam fastball that usually clocks at 93 mph, 43% of the time.

Meccage thus has Stratton working to improve the consistency with which he can attack certain areas of the plate.

“Right now, we’re really focused on fastball execution,” Meccage said. “That’s probably one area that’s been a little different than in the past: his fastball execution. We’re dialing in on that on top of fighting the opposing report (on him).”

As Stratton works on his fastball accuracy, he also has looked to do a better job of keeping hitters guessing.

Whether that means alternating the first pitch he throws or getting more creative in two-strike counts, Stratton has looked to shuffle the deck with his pitches.

“I think it has to do with sequencing,” he said. “Being in this division for four years, maybe the book’s out on me a little bit with what I’m trying to do. I think that guys are kind of comfortable with that. They’re not necessarily hitting anything too hard. They’re just getting hits. Sequencing is the biggest thing I’ve got to do a better job of.”

This season, only 8% of Stratton’s pitches have been changeups.

For Meccage, if opposing teams are looking to hone in on Stratton’s fastball and curveball, the latter of which is his second-most thrown pitch, incorporating a changeup with more regularity could be a way to combat teams’ familiarity.

“The changeup was something that was a good pitch for him last year, and we brought it back a little slow this year,” Meccage said. “I think it’s something that we’re going to get back to. It’s just (about) disrupting (opposing teams’) gameplans.

“… Metrically, it’s a good pitch. It’s a pitch you can throw in the strike zone, just outside the strike zone, so that’s another pitch that we’ve investigated using a little bit more often.”

As Stratton continues to search for adjustments that will bear fruit, he has resolved to keep his head down and take things one day at a time.

“The only thing I can do is go out there, pitch, try to execute. I need to do a little bit better of a job of that,” he said. “… (I’m) just trying to be more thoughtful and a little more unpredictable.”