A sign of things to come for Tony Watson and Jared Hughes?

Jared Hughes and Tony Watson both had scoreless outings. Is this a sign of things to come?

There has been much consternation regarding the beleaguered Pirates bullpen so far this year, and much of the concern revolves around former lockdown pitchers Arquimedes Caminero, Tony Watson and Jared Hughes.  Watson and Hughes each pitched an inning of scoreless relief in Wednesday’s game against the Reds and both looked decidedly sharper than previous outings (Caminero did not appear).  Is this a sign of things to come or just a positive blip in an otherwise mediocre performance?

Let’s start with Hughes.  Hughes returned from a left lat muscle strain on May 1 and has since pitched in 5 games.  In the latest outing versus the Reds, he came on in the 7th inning and promptly beaned Adam Duvall.  Duvall was subsequently caught stealing which meant he didn’t score when backup catcher Tucker Barnhart hit a triple.  That by itself doesn’t sound like a great outing, however, Hughes also fanned two batters on nasty swing-and-miss pitches and generally showed a command of his pitches that we haven’t seen from him thus far.  His sinker often came in at or below the batter’s knees with a little more drop than previous outings.  Even when Hughes hit Duvall, he was actually executing an inside-out pitching sequence and just got a little too high and tight with a fastball.  His pitches were located much lower in the strike zone and when Hughes is able to throw low strikes, good things happen.   With all of that said, there doesn’t appear to be any major change to Hughes’ approach, so it is premature to say anything other than Hughes had a good night.

Watson came on to pitch the 8th inning as he’s done so many times before.  He had an uneventful three-up, three-down inning on 12 pitches and 3 ground ball outs.  It was a perfect script for a Tony Watson inning.  What was different about last night for Watson was that many of his sinkers were located lower, and has less vertical drop, than in previous outings where he was hit hard.  Perhaps he is backing off just a bit and getting better results.  For Watson, the lower the pitch, the higher the whiff rate and the better the results.  If he is, in fact, trading off some of the bite of the pitch for better control, then it can be argued that it is a sustainable change and can have a sustainable effect.  This bodes well for his future appearances.

Hughes and Watson will definitely appear in the important Cubs series this weekend.  It will be interesting to see if Watson continues trading off better location for less movement on his sinking pitches.  If so, he should be rewarded with more ground ball outs.  For Hughes, maybe this is that magic point in time where he steadies his control and can start consistently throwing sinkers at or below the knees.  If so, then he will likely regain his 2015 form.  If not, we could still see inconsistent results.