Pirates lefty Steven Brault 'excited' to build off strong finish, cement spot in starting rotation

Now that Steven Brault has solidified a spot in the starting rotation, the Pittsburgh Pirates left-hander can’t contain his excitement. He even used the word with the frequency which he used to throw his fastball.

“I’m excited. There’s no other way to play it. I’m excited,” Brault said. “I’m going to work as hard as I can and I’m excited to get going. I love starting. It’s my favorite thing to do. So I’m going to try to cement myself for the long term in a starting role and, hopefully, that’s with this team, moving forward. We’ll see how everything goes, but, yeah, I’m very excited.”

Brault is planning to build off his success from last season, when he was 1-3 with a 3.38 ERA and 1.195 WHIP. After being shut down by a shoulder injury in spring training, Brault started the season pitching in piggyback with Chad Kuhl and finished it with four strong starts, including a complete game two-hitter against St. Louis on Sept. 17 and a seven-inning two-hitter against the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 22.

Although the affable Brault describes himself as more of a “quiet leader,” his results spoke volumes to rest of the rotation. He was voted the Steve Blass Award winner as the team’s top pitcher by the BBWAA last season, and his buy-in of the new philosophy set a strong example.

Now, the Pirates are counting on the 28-year-old and his outgoing personality to show leadership to a staff after the past two Opening Day starters, Jameson Taillon and Joe Musgrove, were traded and the club parted ways with Brault’s podcast partner, starter Trevor Williams.

“When you have a guy like Brault that is outgoing and embraces people and talks to them, it is helpful, because there’s young guys in camp that are finding their way,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “We want to make sure that the guys that have been here, especially the guys who were here last year, that they’re able to educate them and talk to them and articulate what their plan is.”

As always, the focus for Brault is on fastball command. What he found last season was that throwing fewer fastballs made him more deceptive, and more dangerous. In 2019, 50.6% of his pitchers were four-seamers and 13.4% sinkers. Last season, he reduced those numbers to 38.9% four-seamers and 11.8% sinkers while increasing his use of the changeup (14.2% to 24.3%) and slider (6.0% to 22.5%).

“Baseball is very simple. Pitching is very simple. It’s very hard, but it’s very simple,” Brault said. “If you can show you can throw other pitches for strikes, then they can’t just sit on the fastball. If you can only throw a fastball, it’s a lot easier to hit. If you can’t, if you have to be weary of other pitches, then it looks really fast even though it’s 91 or 92 mph. … It’s a back-and-forth game. I plan on doing that again, throwing the changeup more, throwing off-speed more for strikes. The percentage I was at last year was good, right around 50% instead of throwing 70% or whatever it was.”

That was quite the changeup in mentality for a pitcher who once threw fastballs on his first 69 pitches against Colorado in September 2019. Brault is learning to trust his off-speed stuff, as well as his catcher. He allowed Jacob Stallings to call every pitch in the complete game against the Cardinals, deciding beforehand not to shake him off.

“He’s funky, man,” Pirates right-hander Mitch Keller said of Brault. “I don’t think anybody in the world could go out and throw I don’t know how many fastballs he threw in a row in Colorado that one start — like 69 in a row — and then in the seventh inning pitches a slider. That’s ridiculous. That just shows you that he’s got a really good fastball and he’s really good when he’s all around the zone.”

Attacking the strike zone is a point of emphasis for the Pirates under pitching coach Oscar Marin, and Keller said Brault’s success served as a “great learning lesson” for the rest of the rotation that it can provide positive results. Brault plans to keep track of his first-pitch strike percentage all spring, whether it’s in live bullpen sessions, batting practices or games, with a focus on staying ahead in counts.

“Steven’s thing has always been throwing strikes,” Stallings said. “I really think that, previously, he had been too focused on hitting spots. That causes a lot of tension. It would cause spray because he was trying to be too perfect, as opposed to just being aggressive in the zone. I know he called it a ‘freaking throwing machine’ last year. Not the words I would use, but I think it’s a good mentality for him. Whatever clicks for him. He can be in the zone. His deception and stuff is obviously that good that it will create a lot more consistency for him.

“Even prior to last year, we’ve seen great performances by Steven. It was just the consistency aspect. For him to put together two and three and four really good outings there at the end of last season was the most encouraging thing for me.”