The difference between 2022, 2023 teams? It's '100%' starting pitching

WASHINGTON -- As Vince Velasquez walked off the field at Nationals Park Saturday evening, he had done the two things the Pirates had set out to do from the start of spring training: He gave his team a quality start, and he did that by throwing strikes.

Velasquez's first month as a Pirate went about as well as the team could have hoped. With six scoreless innings Saturday, he pushed his current scoreless streak to 18 consecutive innings and, in turn, dropped his season ERA to 3.06. After a shaky start, the team has won each of his last four starts, which makes sense. They were quality starts.

On Saturday, Rich Hill and Velasquez tossed the rotation's 17th and 18th quality starts, respectively, as part of Saturday's doubleheader sweep of the Nationals, winning by scores of 6-3 and 16-1. And while there have been plenty of reasons for the Pirates' turnaround from a 100-loss 2022 season -- including more veteran leadership, a much-improved offense and an aggressive running game -- if you ask the manager, those quality starts are "100 percent" the biggest change between last year's team and this white-hot 20-8 club.

"When you get 18 quality starts, you’re gonna be in a lot of games," Shelton said. "We’ve been in a lot of games because of our starting pitching. It’s a credit to those five guys. It’s a credit to Oscar [Marin] and the pitching group. We’ve really thrown the ball well."

No team in baseball has as many quality starts as the Pirates, and they are 15-3 in those 18 games when they've had a quality start compared to just 5-5 when they don't. This current hot streak was sparked by a stretch of 11 consecutive quality starts, so it's easy to lose track of how often this rotation is going at least six frames without allowing more than three runs. It's usually a lot fewer than three runs, though, as the rotation's ERA has been just 1.84 in those 18 starts.

"I'm just aware of how many games we've been winning," Velasquez said. "When we win games, I think that tells you the number of quality starts, quality at-bats, wins, comeback wins. Everything falls into that category where everything is in the upper numbers."

Compare that to a year ago, when the Pirates not only didn't have a quality start through the month of April, none of their starting pitchers had a win. Some of that was a product of the short spring after the lockout and experimenting with the hybrid-pitcher role, but it was also clear that the personnel wasn't what it needed to be.

So this winter, the Pirates brought in Hill and Velasquez, two vets with good overall track records of throwing strikes and staying in the zone, to try to help shape that new staff identity. They paired with young pitchers they saw go in the zone more as last season went on, like Mitch Keller and Roansy Contreras.

During spring training, one of the first things pitchers would be greeted with in the clubhouse was a list of every pitcher's strike percentage. This was going to be hammered home, and Marin's word was to "smother" the batter.

"Attacking the strike zone is something we've harped on all year," Hill said. "It's something that's going to continue on. I think that's one thing that we've been able to see from this starting rotation and right into the bullpen. Everybody's been throwing the ball great. Just being able to continue to keep that aggressiveness and intensity, and good things will happen."

Going by Baseball Savant's data, no team has seen a larger increase of pitches thrown in the strike zone than the Pirates, going from 29th last year (46.8%) to seventh this season (50%). Keller has seen the 10th-largest increase, from 50.1% to 55.9%. Now he's 12th. Johan Oviedo's in-zone rate has jumped 3.7%, Contreras' 1.3%. The young starters have bought into the idea, and it's allowing them to go deeper into games. A year ago, the Pirates were 27th in innings pitched by starters (1,421). Now they're No. 1 (250 2/3 IP).

"Pleased with the progress? Yes," Marin told traveling reporters recently. "Can we get better? Yes. It’s one of those things where we’re striving to be tops in baseball. We’re going to keep shooting for that. That’s our goal. That’s the expectation. To have that expectation is a really good thing, as opposed to just having some guys [and saying], ‘They’re young and they’re just getting reps.’ No, no, no. I think we’re a little bit past that."

On Saturday, Velasquez was in the zone on 54% of his pitches with 65 strikes on 92 pitches (70.7%). Hill threw 75 strikes -- the most he had thrown in a game since 2019 -- over 103 pitches in his 6 1/3 innings, allowing just two earned runs. Neither walked a batter and were able to get out of early jams by continuing to fill the strike zone.

With those quality starts in hand, the offense was spotted time to get to the Nationals' bullpen in game one to pull ahead and win. In game two, they scored early and often, giving Velasquez more of a cushion to just attack and get an extra frame in to spot the bullpen during the doubleheader. 

"At the end of the day, quality starts, good at-bats, stolen bases, putting up numbers like that, that's why we're in the position that we are," Velasquez said. "That [shows] what we're doing right."

The stuffed Pirates Pikachu -- the prize for the pitcher of the game -- hanging in their lockers during postgame interviews also shows what they're doing right.

After 18 innings of baseball Saturday, there was plenty of dancing and loud music in the visitor's clubhouse. The group has been loose and is enjoying the best opening month of baseball the franchise has played since 1992. There's a long way to go to potentially complete what would be one of the most rapid turnarounds in franchise history, but if they keep getting pitching like this, it might be possible.

"Just the consistency of how everybody's bringing that intensity every single day and understanding that we are boxers in a ring," Hill said. "You have to go out there and continue to keep fighting. That's one of the best analogies of what I can come up with. When the bell rings it's time to go and get between the lines, and we're the aggressor. We continue to keep that mindset and continue to keep that fight? Like I said, good things are going to happen."

• After the Pirates chased Chad Kuhl in the fourth after allowing eight runs, Jack Suwinski truly put the doubleheader out of reach in the sixth, uncorking a 444-foot grand slam, the longest by a Pirate in the Statcast era:

Suwinski just might be the Pirates' hottest hitter, overcoming a slow start to boost his slashline to .297/.413/.656 with six home runs and 18 RBIs.

"You see him have confidence throughout his at-bats, with two strikes," Shelton said. "Last year it was a lot of swinging. Now, he’s controlling at-bats."

• Also mixed into that game-two blowout were three RBI hits by Carlos Santana, two hits for Jason Delay (who is hitting .390 now) and seven multi-hit performances.

• Cody Bolton made his major-league debut in game two, tossing two scoreless innings with a strikeout of Jeter Downs.

Bolton wasn't available postgame, but he told me pregame that he had his family here for his potential debut, so he got to share it with them.

• Miguel Andújar was the hero in his return to the majors in game one, breaking a 2-2 tie with a sixth inning home run. I wrote more about that in Freeze Frame.

He would later go full Rob Mackowiak (what I'm calling homering in both ends of a doubleheader) with a ninth-inning home run off of Lane Thomas in game two.

A 40-man spot opened up when Wil Crowe was placed on the 60-day injured list Saturday, something Shelton said was expected when he was initially placed on the IL this week.

"We knew with the length of time that it was gonna be no-throw, then the buildup back up, that it was gonna be a 60," Shelton said.

• Drew Maggi got his hit. More on that here.

• Factoid of the game: The last time the Pirates won by at least 15 runs on the road was Sept. 16, 1975, the famous  22-0 game against the Cubs.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 15-day injured list: RHP Wil Crowe (shoulder), RHP Chase De Jong (lumbar spine), Rob Zastryzny (elbow)

• 60-day injured list: 1B Ji-Man Choi (Achilles), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow)

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card for game two:

1. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
2. Bryan Reynolds, LF
3. Andrew McCutchen, DH
4. Carlos Santana, 1B
5. Jack Suwinski, CF
6. Connor Joe, RF
7. Rodolfo Castro, SS
8. Tucupita Marcano, 2B
9. Jason Delay, C

And for Dave Martinez's Nationals:

1. Alex Call, RF
2. Luis García, 2B
3. Jeimer Candelario, 3B
4. Joey Meneses, DH
5. Keibert Ruinz, C
6. Dominic Smith, 1B
7. Stone Garrett, LF
8. CH Abrams, SS
9. Victor Robles, CF

THE SCHEDULE

Assuming the weather cooperates, the Pirates and Nationals will conclude their three-game set Sunday at 1:35 p.m. Oviedo (2-1, 3.03) will take on Josiah Gray (1-4, 2.93). I've got this one before heading down to Tampa for the Rays series starting Tuesday.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE CONTENT

Visit our team page for everything.