It was inevitable that the Pirates would lose another baseball game at some point, of course, but it’s unfortunate that Tyler Glasnow’s big league debut couldn’t have been a little bit smoother. Glasnow was really excellent the first time or so through the Cardinal lineup; he walked the first hitter that he faced, but then set down nine hitters in a row with the deadly fastball/curveball combination that got him here. The Cardinals scored in the fourth when Matt Joyce misplayed and Aledmys Diaz fly ball into a triple and he came home on a two-out Glasnow wild pitch (Glasnow had nearly escaped the jam with a Matt Holliday groundout and a strikeout of Stephen Piscotty with a nasty curve). In the fifth, Randall Grichuk homered, and Glasnow came out in the sixth after allowing a Greg Garcia double and a walk of Holliday. Arquimedes Caminero came in and spoiled the debut a bit by allowing a homer to Piscotty on the second pitch, and that was the game.
Seeing Glasnow debut after Steven Brault and Chad Kuhl also debuting within the last few weeks, was striking; both Brault and Kuhl have done fine with the Pirates, but Glasnow’s fastball and curveball were untouchable when he put them where he wanted them. I’m not sure how many changeups he threw today — PitchFX says zero, but he threw one or two 90-91 mph pitches that could’ve been his change — and he’s going to need that pitch to get through lineups more than once or twice, but watching him just felt different. There’s obviously a tremendous amount of talent in that 6’8″ frame, and from what I saw today, the Pirates are probably right in thinking that it’s time to put that talent up against big league hitting and see how Glasnow fares.
Three wins in four games in St. Louis and a 7-2 road trip is not bad. The Pirates will close out the nominal first half of the season this weekend by hosting the Cubs.
Photo by Jeff Curry/Getty Images
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