Opposition Research: Nick Pivetta

Our old friend got off to a hot stat, but predictably, it didn’t last

Headed into the 2019 season, there was a growing narrative that Phillies righthander Nick Pivetta was an emerging ace. The then-25-year-old had come off a season in which he struck out a lot of batters, and the thought was that he was on the verge of putting it all together.

Narrator: He was not on the verge of putting it all together.

Pivetta struggled through much of the 2019 season, and at one point was moved to the bullpen. He began the 2020 season in the bullpen and was awful to the point of being unusable. On August 10th of that season, Pivetta was brought in to pitch the ninth inning with the Phillies winning 13-1, and he couldn’t get the final three outs.

That was the last time he appeared in a Phillies uniform as they demoted him and eventually traded him to the Red Sox for (shudder) Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree.

Pivetta found instant success in the Red Sox rotation and there was grumbling that the Phillies made a huge mistake, even though it was clear that he was a textbook “needs a change of scenery” case.

Pivetta spent the next four years in the Red Sox rotation and was one of the most consistent starters in the major leagues. But that consistency was on a season-long level, not start to start. He could easily follow a gem with a three inning, five-run stinker. But by season’s end, it was a given that he would have an ERA somewhere in the 4’s and be worth about 2.5 wins above replacement.

Theres a place in the world for cromulent inning eaters. A lot of successful teams have Pivetta types at the back of their rotations. But at some point, teams are going to hope for something a little better, and after last season, the Red Sox let him reach free agency, where the Padres signed him to a two-year deal with two player option years.

Early on, it looked like a great investment. After five starts, Pivetta’s ERA was 1.20. But it’s steadily crept up since then, and it seems like a decent bet that he’ll be back in the familiar 4.00 range by season’s end.

Good news for the Phillies: His last start was excellent (Seven shutout innings against the Nationals), which means there’s a good chance that his follow-up on Tuesday will be lousy.

X-Men character of the series

Temper

Temper came in with a bit of hype, as she was one of the “Five Lights” that signified new mutants being born after the Scarlet Witch eliminated most of them. It was once predicted that she would eventually become the leader of the X-Men.

But she has yet to live up to that potential. She was once thrown into exile for disobeying the laws of Krakoa, and has since joined Cyclops’ X-Men team. Will she ever live up to the expectations? We shall see.

Additional thought about the series

Bryce Harper’s return seems imminent, which theoretically should help a Phillies offense which has struggled mightily over the past week. (Sure, they averaged over five runs per game during the Braves series, but they could use some work at the distribution of those runs.)

But we’ve seen Harper come off extended injury outages before, and he rarely hits the ground running. It feels like he’ll hit an adrenaline-fueled home run in the first game or two and then go into an extended slump while he regains his timing. That’s not ideal considering the Phillies are in the midst of the toughest part of their schedule.

Hopefully Harper doesn’t need a two-week ramp up period to start hitting the way we expect. Or if he does struggle, maybe the rest of the Phillies’ hitters could actually step up their games to help compensate.