Phillies: Nick Pivetta has just one thing holding him back

Nick Pivetta has shown major improvement for the Phillies this season, but he still has one thing holding him back from more success.

You can’t get much worse than Nick Pivetta‘s rookie season. Among all pitchers with 130 or more innings last year, he had the fifth-highest ERA. He walked almost 10% of opposing hitters and had a 1.51 WHIP. He logged the second-most innings of anyone on the Phillies as they saw a lot of potential when he was pitching well.

With the 2018 season almost over, it is safe to say Pivetta vastly improved this year. He has made 30 starts and one bullpen appearance, posting a 4.67 ERA, 3.76 fielding-independent pitching, 10.56 strikeouts per nine innings and 2.74 walks per nine.

If anything, Pivetta’s ERA should be considerably lower. Mark Simon of the Athletic (subscription required) wrote that Pivetta has been hurt more by the defense behind him than any other pitcher. Vince Velasquez and Zach Eflin are both in the top five, but the defense has cost Pivetta 24 runs total, 10 more than Velasquez and Eflin. If you deducted these runs from Pivetta’s earned run total, he would have a 3.27 ERA.

More from That Balls Outta Here

While it is hard to blame Pivetta for these batted balls, one area he continues to struggle in is giving up home runs. Sunday he gave up his 23rd home run of the year. His 22 home runs and 15.6% home run to fly ball ratio ranked 10th and fifth-worst in the NL coming into the day. Both of those rankings will surely only get worse after giving up another Sunday.

Home runs were an issue for Pivetta as well last year. He gave up 25 and had an 18.2% HR/FB ratio. While that rate did fall somewhat this year, it is still significantly higher than the league average.

In 17 starts where Pivetta has given up a home run, the team won just six times.

Meanwhile, they are 8-5 when he keeps the ball in the yard. That makes a lot of sense: fewer home runs means fewer runs scored. Considering runs are hard to come by for Philadelphia’s offense, their pitching staff needs to do whatever they can to keep the ball in the ballpark.