PHILADELPHIA — With two of his young pitchers struggling in April, Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage wanted to see if they had an additional weapon to work with.
Searage knew Trevor Williams and Chad Kuhl had thrown curveballs before arriving in the Pirates’ organization, so he asked them to throw a few in bullpen sessions to see if it could help.
The result has helped both pitchers have more success when facing hitters a second time through the order, and has Searage optimistic that the rotation is close to a breakthrough.
“You saw it right away. They have good ones and I’m like, ‘Start throwing it,’ ” Searage told DKPittsburghSports.com Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park. “We started working on it and it came together. They’re growing up at the major league level and there’s still some barriers they have to knock through, but overall it’s tremendous.”
Kuhl, who will start against the Phillies tonight, was effective in 14 starts last season. That's when he noticed he could not rely on only his two-seamer, slider and changeup. Left-handers were batting .301 against him last season, so he added a four-seam fastball that reached 99 mph this season.
It was not pretty at first. The 24-year-old allowed six runs in a loss to the Nationals on May 16, but he needed the pitch to challenge lefties inside. Searage thought a curveball would be a nice complement to both of his fastballs.
Williams, a former second-round draft pick who is 25 years old, had a 5.59 ERA though five relief appearances in April while relying on his fastball, sinker, changeup and slider, but he needed a pitch to help him recover when falling behind in the count. The curveball gave him a 77-mph pitch that added deception from his 84-mph slider.
When Jameson Taillon was placed on the disabled list on May 6, Williams was moved to the rotation, and Searage and Clint Hurdle thought a curveball would be necessary to get through a lineup multiple times.
Williams and Kuhl threw it seamlessly in those early bullpen sessions with Searage, first off flat ground and then a few times off the mound. They did not have to learn how to throw it, though. Williams had a curveball during his three seasons in the Marlins’ organization and Kuhl threw one at the University of Delaware.
When Williams was acquired from the Marlins in October 2015, he was told to stop using the pitch and to focus on his slider as a potential strikeout pitch. Kuhl, meanwhile, had his arsenal simplified to focus on command of his two-seam fastball — part of the Pirates' organizational philosophy.
Despite the familiarity, there was an acclimation period when throwing the curveball again.
“It’s finding adjustments with your wrist, finger pressure and what not,” Williams said. “Throwing it in the game is the best time to use it.”
Williams had no plans to overhaul his repertoire, though. He threw the curveball once in his first start of the season against the Dodgers on May 8, when he allowed six runs in three innings.
Kuhl didn’t add his for a few more weeks, but it quickly became an out pitch for him.
After allowing five runs against the Mets on May 26, Searage wanted Kuhl to test the curveball against the Diamondbacks. He threw 13 of them in that game, and opponents are batting just .125 against the pitch since then, according to MLB's Statcast data.
“I was surprised how much we were throwing it that first time,” Kuhl said. “It was, ‘OK, here we go.’ I’m obviously super happy with the results.”
Adding the pitch is another chapter in Kuhl's unique story since he made his debut with the Pirates last June. In addition to adding the curveball, the right-hander's sinking two-seam fastball is up 2 mph since last season and his four-seam averages 97 mph.
“I’ve never seen that before, either," Hurdle said of Kuhl. "It just goes to show you if you keep showing up, you could see something new just about every day."
Kuhl has a 5.26 ERA this season, but has improved over his last five starts with a 3.81 ERA, 22 strikeouts and nine walks in 26 innings.
Williams, meanwhile, has a 1.04 WHIP over his past four starts and opponents batted .218 against him in that span.
Both are still learning how to utilize the pitch, as well as the art of efficiency. Kuhl threw it 10 times against the Giants last Saturday, when he allowed one run in six innings. He had three strikeouts that afternoon, one of them capped by this curveball on a 1-2 count to get Ryder Jones to end the fifth inning:
Williams, on the other hand, has mostly used the pitch to surprise an opposing batter. Once he gets through an order once, he's thrown a first-pitch curveball to get ahead in the count, or after he's fallen behind to get an easy strike.
He used that strategy in his last start with against the Giants last Sunday, getting ahead with the pitch against Joe Panik and Buster Posey in the fourth inning. He threw one on the first pitch to Denard Span in the sixth, but missed outside the zone.
Opponents are batting .198 against Williams in their second plate appearance of a game.
It was not the first time Searage urged one of his starters to try to throw a curveball mid-season. Gerrit Cole started throwing one in August 2013 and it has become one of his best pitches since.
Neither Williams nor Kuhl has produced as much success as Cole, but both have proven more than capable of helping a rotation that has the sixth-lowest ERA in the National League.
"This rotation is getting close to where we need it to be," Searage said. "Those guys are learning a lot being on the bump. The young kids are really learning and it wasn’t easy."