I spent a long day at work yesterday and got home just as the Pirate game was ending, so when it ended and I thought about writing the recap my first thought was, “this was a pretty run of the mill game,” and I put the recap off for a bit, because I didn’t think there was much to write. Sometime around midnight, I remembered JA Happ and I realized there was plenty to write, but I was falling asleep and it would have to wait until morning. So here we are.
It is a little misleading to say this, but the Diamondback team the Pirates just took two of three from leads the National League in runs scored. Part of this is because Bankwhatever Ballparkfield that they play at is a friendly hitter’s park, but part of it is because they’re a good offensive team. They have a team OPS+ of 98, which is the same as the Pirates (the Pirates are fourth in the NL in runs scored now) and tied for third in the National League behind the Giants and Dodgers. They gave Gerrit Cole a hard time, they challenged Francisco Liriano a bit, but they didn’t even make JA Happ sweat last night.
Happ tossed six shutout innings last night, striking out three, walking two, and only allowing two hits. He got eight ground outs to go with five fly outs, which is a nice number from JA Happ. He only needed 83 pitches to do so, but was pulled before facing the Diamondbacks 4-5-6 hitters a third time, which was a solid move on the part of Clint Hurdle. In his last two starts with the Pirates, Happ has allowed one run in 11 1/3 innings, striking out ten, walking three, scattering seven hits, and only allowing one homer. His fastball has had nice velocity and the Pirates have him using a sinker or two-seamer in a way he wasn’t with the Mariners (the gray line on this graph), which means he’s throwing strikes and keeping the ball on the ground, more or less. It’s hard to think that two starts points to any meaningful change in the arc of the career for a pitcher with as much history as Happ (this is slightly different than Joe Blanton, by the way, since Blanton missed a year with arm surgery and looked like a different pitcher out of the bullpen both before and after his trade to the Pirates, but that’s a different story), but the Pirates wanted Happ to be someone to take on some innings and keep them in ball games, and Happ’s exceeded those expectations in these last two starts.
I don’t know if there’s anything in Happ that Ray Searage sees that could make him into a better pitcher than he’s been to this point in his career, a la Francisco Liriano and Edinson Volquez when they came to Pittsburgh, and I certainly don’t think we’ve seen enough from him to make a judgment one way or another in two starts. What I do think, though, is that it’s fine to celebrate Happ’s success in a small sample size, because success in a small sample size is all the Pirates ever wanted out of Happ. If the Pirates hadn’t acquired Happ at the deadline, their only real option with AJ Burnett’s injury would’ve been to plug Radhames Liz into the rotation and hope for the best, while hoping Vance Worley snuck through waivers. Every move to bring Liz or Worley up would’ve required roster moves, and, well, Liz and Worley are where they are right now for a reason. Bringing Happ in at the very least threw one more name into that mix.
All Happ really has to do is get the Pirates to September 1st. If he can get them there, the rosters expand and Liz and Worley can become Pirates again (they would both need roster spots, but I don’t think that should be too big of an issue), along with some more bullpen help (I won’t pretend to guess who this might be given the way the Pirates handled this last year, but Bobby LaFromboise will probably be back and Deolis Guerra could be, too). AJ Burnett’s “four week” timeline comes up then, too, and so the Pirates will need to evaluate the viability of a return to the rotation for him.
About a week ago, the Pirates lost their first two games to the Cardinals and I wrote quite a bit about how worried I was about the direction the rotation was trending in and how I felt like the Pirates would need some starts from Morton, Locke, and/or Happ that didn’t have alarm bells ringing in the fourth inning every time out. Happ has, at least, given them that. If he can give them more, it’ll be a big bonus.
Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
