Pirates pitcher Chad Kuhl comes back to camp with 'gross' curveball, eyes starting role

The stands were mostly empty and the batters were his Pittsburgh Pirates teammates, so the simulated game Wednesday night wasn’t quite the same as making his major-league debut against Clayton Kershaw.

It was still a thrill for Chad Kuhl to pitch at PNC Park again, throwing two innings two years and 12 days since his last MLB start before undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.

“Yeah, it felt like a home game,” Kuhl said. “It was cool. Just being back on top of that mound again, it just felt like it was so long and, obviously, with this, I’ve been out now over two years. … It just felt good to be back on our home mound, pitching, feeling normal. It is really cool. There’s really no other way to describe it. It’s just good to be back.”

The 27-year-old right-hander hopes to be better than ever, as the downtime allowed for a different Kuhl, one who no longer was as tentative as in spring training. Kuhl came to camp armed with an arsenal that catcher Jacob Stallings described “filthy,” adding to his triple-digit fastball and slider repertorie a curveball he called “just gross.”

“Just going through my entire life, my entire career, the slider has always been a pitch for me that I’ve felt most comfortable with and can throw it for strikes or putaway,” Kuhl said. “The curveball was just something that I recently added. Just dedicating the time, and not saying I put the slider on the backburner and kind of forget about it. I still work on it, but really pushed that focus to the curveball and get it to a spot where I feel like I can be as consistent as I am with the slider.”

The development of that pitch became a priority for Kuhl, especially after left-handed hitters slashed .301/.358/.496 against him in 2016, .285/.383/.511 in ’17 and hit 10 homers in ‘18.

“It was really about adding something that changed eye level and speeds,” Kuhl said. “Everything that I threw was hard: Two-seamer was hard, four-seamer was hard — changeup, slider, everything that I threw was hard. I had talks with David Freese and random guys about changing the look to a hitter, changing the speed to a hitter, and that’s when we really started to develop that curveball to use more often. It ended up being a really good weapon to lefties and righties and has been really good for me.”

The Pirates eased Kuhl back when he returned from Tommy John surgery, as he had two one-inning outings in spring training. There was some talk that his future could be in the bullpen, with stuff that could allow him to become a high-leverage reliever.

“My concern now would be, can we get him enough work? Can we get him enough innings?” manager Derek Shelton said, with an eye on Kuhl’s role for the 2021 season. “I think we’re playing it in two different ways. Before, we had to worry about too much (work). Now, we’re going to have to make sure we functionally get him enough innings and put him in the right spot.”

So, Shelton is toying with the idea of using Kuhl and lefty Steven Brault in a piggyback, allowing both to build up their pitch counts as teams start the season with expanded rosters. That could give Kuhl time to increase his arm strength, as he has hit the mid-90s on the radar gun but sat around 93 mph in the simulated game.

“I’ve only been a starter,” Kuhl said. “I would obviously love the opportunity to start. It would mean a lot to start. But to put this team in a good position to win ballgames is why I’m here.”