Baseball Brunch: Bucs Pitchers Rolling

SAN DIEGO -- Joe Kerrigan saw it watching video over the winter. Zach Duke saw it in the attitudes of his fellow pitchers in spring training.

Now, the rest of baseball is seeing it too. The Pirates pitching doesn't stink. In fact, it's pretty good.

But is this real? Or just a three-week fluke?

Even Kerrigan, the veteran pitching coach, doesn't know for sure, but he's enjoying it while it lasts.

"It's nice that we're off to a good start, but you've got to remember, we haven't even played 1/10th of the schedule yet," Kerrigan said before the Pirates opened a weekend series against the Padres. "It's better to get off to a a good start than a slow start, but we've been around the block a few times. This thing is a long journey."

Still, Kerrigan is cautiously optimistic that the Pirates, who were leading the league with a 3.09 earned run average through Friday, have the pieces there to pitch well all season. After he took the job, becoming Pittsburgh's fourth pitching coach in five years, he watched video of all the pitchers and was puzzled as to how they managed to have a league-worst 5.10 ERA in 2008.

"I saw a bunch of good deliveries," Kerrigan said. "The numbers I saw just didn't add to up to what was on the video. I saw too many guys who were sound with their mechanics. It just didn't make sense."

Duke, a mainstay in the Pittsburgh rotation for the past four years, said he didn't get it either.

"The talent has been here the last few years," he said. "It's just been a matter of taking that talent and putting it into actually winning games. We're finally learning how to do that."

That is largely because of Kerrigan, a stickler for preparation. Kerrigan spends hours going over scouting reports and watching video. He also uses statistics to help his pitchers. Pirates pitchers have been more aware this year of the tendencies of opposing hitters in certain counts.

"It's taken a lot of the guesswork out," Duke said. "We have a definite plan for each hitter and each count. We have more number studies and when guys like to swing in the count, so we can expand the zone a little instead of just grooving one."

Last season Pirates pitchers allowed opponents to hit .251 after getting ahead 0-1 and .194 after 0-2, both among the worst in the league. This season the Pirates were holding hitters to a .211 average after getting ahead with one strike and .149 after getting up 0-2.

Thanks to some more judicious use of their stuff, the Pirates had four shutouts in their first 13 games of the season, a first in the club's 123-year history. They didn't pitch their fourth shutout until the 109th game last year.

"We definitely had a different feel (in spring training)," Duke said. "We all looked in the mirror and decided 'We're tired of losing.' The only way we're going to change that is by changing ourselves. You look around the room and everyone has done things a little different to stop the losing trend."

Manager John Russell said he's aware the team will still face doubters.

"The (pitchers) have to keep focused," Russell said. "They are having a lot of fun. They believe what they are doing. Let's just continue to take it a game, a series, a week at a time. So far it's worked pretty well for us."

After the Pirates swept the Marlins last week in Pittsburgh, Marlins right fielder Cody Ross was a believer.

"If their pitching can do what they did to us -- and I don't mean the starters, but the bullpen, too -- they've got a good chance," Ross told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "They're just good all-around."

Overheard and Understood

• If it seems like there have been a lot of grand slams already this season, there have. With one week remaining in April, there had been 19 grand slams hit, one every 779 at-bats. (And that was before Shane Victorino, Alexei Ramirez and Albert Pujols hit grand slams in the past two days.) Since 1996, the only other seasons in which grand slams came more than once every 1,000 at-bats in April were 2000 (one per 784 at-bats) and 1996 (one per 957 at-bats)

• Word around the Padres is that they aren't trading Jake Peavy. That's easy to say in April, with the team winning. See what happens if they fall out of the race in July.

• When Angels pitcher Rich Thompson got called up to the majors last weekend, his wife found out not from him, but from the wife of another player with the Angels' Salt Lake City affiliate. If you want to know more about the life of a baseball wife, Ashley Thompson has been blogging as a "Trophy Wife" for the Orange County Register.

• From the Notes That Are Never Outdated Dept.: In the eighth round of the 2002 draft, the Yankees took Brad Halsey with the 246th pick. With the very next pick, the Giants took Clay Hensley. Four years later, Halsey gave up Barry Bonds' 714th homer. A year after that, Hensley gave up homer No. 755. Spooky.

• There is a growing trend of major leaguers wearing mouthguards, but it's not to protect their teeth. Guys like Ryan Howard, Manny Ramirez and Eric Byrnes are wearing them "to relax your lower jaw, and that allows more blood flow to the brain," Howard told Philadelphia reporters.

• Jeff Kent will compete in the upcoming ABC reality series "The Superstars," which is a revival of the 1970s show in which actors and other celebrities competed in a variety of athletic events. This incarnation of the show features only pro athletes like Brandi Chastain, Jennifer Capriati and Bode Miller. The star of the show, though, is certain to be Terrell Owens. Kent vs. T.O. Set your DVR.

• The Giants sold at least 30,000 tickets for their first 656 games at AT&T Park, a streak that ended with Wednesday's crowd of 26,593.