You know, I wasn’t expecting all that much from JT Brubaker this year. I thought he did an admirable job filling in as a starter in 2021, but he ran out of gas down the stretch and made me question whether he had the stamina to last an entire season in the rotation. Yet here we are in July 2022 and Brubaker is not only surviving but thriving. After 6 innings of 2-run ball on Monday (and one of those runs should’ve been unearned, due to Josh VanMeter flubbing a grounder), his ERA is down to 3.96 on the season.
Brubaker did not have his best stuff on Monday. Yes, he got 15 swings-and-misses, but those generated just 4 strikeouts. He left a lot of balls out over the plate and the Cubs hit them hard — fortunately, the defense behind him generally made some great plays (VanMeter aside). Tyler Heineman in particular was a standout behind the dish, throwing out a runner at home on a passed ball and catching a couple of Cubs stealing. Ben Gamel made another one of his trademark catches in Wrigley’s left field corner, which paid big dividends when Brubaker gave up a home run to the next batter.
Generally, though, Brubaker has been a solid pitcher throughout the year. You can say that about a lot of the starters, actually — Brubaker, José Quintana, Zach Thompson and especially Mitch Keller have all exceeded my expectations. I’ve been critical of Oscar Marin in the past, but the pitching has made a real step forward over the last couple months. There’s a solid core here if in the rotation the team actually wanted to start trying to contend, with a free agent or two added in of course.
No such progress has been made on the hitting side. Bryan Reynolds’ return to the majors was not the offensive catalyst I had hoped, as he went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. Yoshi Tsutsugo, once again the DH and batting ahead of Oneil Cruz, also went 0-for-4. Ke’Bryan Hayes and Cruz had a couple of singles, the only Pirates to reach base more than once against the Cubs. Adrian Sampson — drafted by the Bucs eons ago, traded for JA Happ in 2015 in one of the greatest deadline deals of all time, and was pitching in the KBO as recently as 2020 — shut down the Bucs for 7 innings.
There’s just way too much flab in the lineup as currently constructed. Maybe this is new to the Pirates, being a National League team and all, but the DH is supposed to be a guy who is GOOD at hitting, a bat that you need to get into the lineup. Tsutsugo is a guy who takes a cut at a 3-0, center-cut fastball and draws cries of despair from the fanbase because the result was a weak groundout to second. Nobody is going to trade for him or VanMeter. I pray big changes are coming after the trade deadline, but there’s no need to waste another week of everyone’s time.
Bucco Ball 