Kyle Nicolas recent dominance continues out of the bullpen
Nicolas has allowed one earned run in last 15 appearances
The Pittsburgh Pirates may have one of the best arm collections in the majors right now, and another might be emerging in the bullpen.
No one has ever questioned Kyle Nicolas' stuff, only if he’d be able to throw enough strikes in the majors to be successful.
It didn’t always look like that’d be the case, highlighted by an outing against the Chicago Cubs where he walked three straight batters on 12 pitches.
There are few pitchers on a roll the way Nicolas is right now.
Since June 22, Nicolas has posted a 0.50 ERA after putting up two more shutout innings on Saturday.
Since that date, he’s pitched 15 times and has allowed just one earned run. He has only allowed a run period in two other games, which was unearned.
Nicolas hasn’t allowed an earned run since July 19. Before that, he had gone nine straight games without allowing an earned run.
His fastball, slider, and curveball are among the best on a staff with some of the best arms on it.
According to the FanGraphs model, only two Pirates pitchers (with at least 30 innings pitched) have three pitches with a Stuff+ of 120 or more—Nicolas and Jared Jones.
According to Baseball Savant, the fastball averages 97.6 mph, which is in the 95th percentile. Pair that with his 85th percentile extension (6.9), and you can easily see why batters are hitting just .194 and slugging .254 against it.
His slider and curveball both have a whiff rate of over 30%, with the latter getting misses nearly half the time (48.7%).
Nicolas has mainly been used in lower-leverage situations, as the walks are still sometimes an issue for him. But when it comes to pure production, Nicolas is making a very strong case in maybe seeing some innings later in games, which does time up well with Colin Holderman struggling as of late.
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I know the goal is probably to get him to be a viable MLB bullpen piece first but it’s nice seeing them letting him go 2 innings the last couple times out.
Him being a “failed starter”, I think it’s valuable to have him come in and do the 6th and 7th(if a SP only goes 5) or the 5th and 6th(if a SP only goes 4).
It would be nice if they used him in that kind of role. That’s my hope for him. Which like I said, is a valuable role and piece to have.
I am Groot.