Gamethread: Pirates look to avoid sweep

The Pirates and their struggling offense will look to avoid being swept at home when they face the Rockies in an early, 12:35pm start. In their last five games, against mostly unimpressive pitching, the team’s hitters have batted .206. Over 40% of their hits came in one game and they’ve topped two runs just the one time.

The Pirates will be facing Kyle Freeland, a second-year lefty who sports a career xFIP of 4.66 and K/9 of 6.4. He primarily throws a fastball and a cutter, as his other pitches aren’t terribly effective, according to Brooks Baseball. This year he’s 0-2 with a 4.50 ERA in three starts. He has no meaningful platoon split for his career, but Clint Hurdle will load up on right-handed hitters anyway.

The Pirates counter with Chad Kuhl, who’s having an interesting disconnect between metrics and results. Kuhl has a 5.74 ERA but a 3.71 xFIP, the result of a .426 BABIP. Despite walking only 2.3 hitters per nine innings, he’s hurt himself by throwing first-pitch strikes only 53.4% of the time, which is well below average.

Rockies

TBA

Pirates

1. Adam Frazier, RF
2. Jordy Mercer, SS
3. Starling Marte, CF
4. Josh Bell, 1B
5. David Freese, 3B
6. Sean Rodriguez, LF
7. Elias Diaz, C
8. Max Moroff, 2B
9. Chad Kuhl, P