Grilli, Melancon have been stellar
The Pirates’ late-inning relief duo of closer of Jason Grilli and set-up man Mark Melancon have not only been locking down games but dominating opponents.
In fact, the pair is working on a historical season.
Going into Saturday night’s game at Anaheim against the Los Angeles Angels, Grilli had compiled a 1.07 ERA in 33 1/3 innings and Melancon’s ERA was 0.99 through 36 1/3 innings.
Only one pair of Pirates relievers have ever had ERAs below 2.00 in the same season with a minimum of 50 innings pitched since the save rule went into effect in 1969.
That was Dave Giusti and Ramon Hernandez in 1972. Giusti had a 1.93 ERA in 54 games while going 7-4 with 22 saves while Hernandez’s ERA was 1.67 in 53 games as he went 5-0 with 14 saves.
Just two others times since 1969 have a Pirates relief tandem even had ERAs under 2.50 — Giusti (2.37) and Hernandez (2.41) again in 1973 and Bill Landrum (1.67) and Doug Bair (2.27) in 1989.
The Pirates were the only team in the major leagues that had two relievers with ERAs under 1.50 with a minimum of 30 innings pitched coming into the weekend.
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Pirates third baseman Pedro Alvarez is called Petey by some and El Toro by others. However, he isn’t likely to be called Night Train or The Vampire anytime soon.
Going into Saturday, Alvarez was a career .223 hitter in night games with 37 home runs in 1,006 plate appearances. In day games, he has a .260 batting average with 30 homers in 480 trips to the plate.
He averages one home run every 16.0 plate appearances in the daylight compared to one every 27.2 at night.
A total of 28 major-leaguers have hit at least 30 home runs in day games since the start of 2010, Alvarez’s debut season. Of those 28, just two have fewer plate appearances in day games than Alvarez – Boston’s Mike Napoli and the Angels’ Mark Trumbo.
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Gerrit Cole became just the third Pirates’ pitcher to win his three career starts when he beat the Angels on Friday night. The other was Myrl Brown in 1922.
Cole allowed two runs and four hits in 6 1/3 innings while winning at Angel Stadium, just 15 minutes from where he went to high school in Orange, Calif.
For the most part, Cole is happy with how his career has started but he would like to pitch deeper into games. His pitch counts in his first three starts have been 81, 80 and 88.
Cole has found out that throwing 80 pitches in the major leagues is harder on the body than throwing 80 pitches in the minor leagues, though.
“The lineups are better and deeper and you’ve got to work that much harder to get hitters out,” he said. “You also have more adrenaline flowing in the games up here, at least I do as a guy who is just starting out. It all takes a toll on your body. I’ve got to get past that, though and be more of a workhorse.”