Pirates A to Z: Recurrent injury spoiled Steven Brault's season, clouds future as a starter

During the offseason, the Tribune-Review will offer Pirates A to Z: An alphabetical player-by-player look at the 40-man roster, from outfielder Anthony Alford to pitcher Miguel Yajure.

Player: Steven Brault

Position: Pitcher

Throws: Left

Bats: Left

Age: 29

Height: 6-foot

Weight: 195 pounds

2021 MLB statistics: Brault was 0-3 with a 5.86 ERA over 27 2/3 innings in seven starts, striking out 19 batters while walking 12.

Contract: After making $2.05 million last season, Brault is eligible for his second year of arbitration.

Acquired: From the Baltimore Orioles in January 2015, along with left-hander Stephen Tarpley, for outfielder Travis Snider.

This past season: Brault finished the way he started it: on the injured list with a left lat strain that spoiled his season.

After being voted winner of the Steve Blass Award as the Pirates’ top pitcher in 2020, Brault was sidelined in spring training and spent most of the season recovering from the injury on his throwing-arm side.

He didn’t join the Pirates starting rotation until Aug. 4, and the Pirates lost his first six starts. In 2020, Brault was the only Pirates starter to throw a complete game. In 2021, he didn’t last longer than 5 2/3 innings in any of his seven starts. Brault did, however, throw at least 66 pitches in every start, showing that he could handle volume.

What he wanted to prove was he could find the strike zone.

“Last year at the end of the season, and coming into this year, one of the things I wanted to make sure of is that I had reduced, cut down the walks,” Brault said. “That was really important to me.”

Following a 6-5 loss at the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 3 — in which he allowed five runs on seven hits and four walks with four strikeouts in four innings — Brault blamed his mechanics for the poor outing.

“It just seemed like I was falling into my backside a little bit too much, so keeping that back leg strong, which is a problem I’ve run into before and I probably will run into again,” Brault said. “It’s just kind of one of those things that I just need to consistently keep up with and work on, and I wasn’t able to get it done today, and because of that, there’s a lot of armside misses, and there was a good amount of not fully getting behind the ball and not getting my velo and stuff like that, so it contributes to a lot of things.”

Pirates manager Derek Shelton believed that Brault was rushing through his delivery, which threw off his timing.

“Because he’s rushing through his delivery, his arm’s not working as quickly as we’d want it to,” Shelton said. “I think that’s why you see all the arm-side misses.”

Brault lasted only two innings in his final outing Sept. 10 before being shut down in mid-September with what Pirates director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk termed a “recurrent” injury.

There was a sliver of promise to the latest injury setback.

“This is an area that he’s injured twice, obviously, but as I mentioned, it’s encouraging that there was no retearing of that muscle,” Tomczyk said. “Lat injuries are complicated in their own nature. I think he proved to himself that he could get back to a high volume of pitching.

“Unfortunately, it just wasn’t sustainable to the rest of this year. So it’s kind of back to — not square one — but it’s back to the drawing board to look at how the body moves, to look at how the mechanics do, look at the arm action and the delivery and see if there are any refinements in that process. To look at his offseason strength and conditioning program, from mobility to strength, and really peel back all the layers of the onion to see if there are opportunities for growth and refinement to the overall body of Steven Brault.”

The future: Where Brault was being counted on to provide innings, his injury-plagued season left the Pirates scrambling for starters.

Brault brings veteran leadership to a team lacking it, so much so that the Pirates brought him to Pittsburgh for a weekend series just to add his presence to the clubhouse and dugout.

He also adds value as a left-hander with 52 career starts in a starting rotation where Mitch Keller’s 39 starts ranks second. Only right-hander Chad Kuhl has more starts (84), and he was banished to the bullpen. That could be where Brault ends up if he can’t stay healthy or crack the rotation.

“We’ve talked about that,” general manager Ben Cherington said. “There’s no clear blueprint for, does this role give him a better chance? There’s some argument that starting and the routine that comes with it may be better for some guys in terms of that, but, generally, we just have to think about what role gives him the best chance to succeed at the major-league level, and so much of that with him is being in a position physically. If he’s in a position physically to do what he’s capable of doing, then he can succeed in either role.”