You want to know who’s only two wins off the National League lead? (If this doesn’t tell you how mediocre the NL is, nothing ever will.) Tom freaking Gorzelanny, that’s who. I’m not kidding: Gorzelanny, who, lest we forget, wears a Pirates uniform while pitching, somehow has obtained a 13-7 record, underscoring just how random the nature of wins and losses is.

For the record, it’s hard to record a lot of wins, even if you’re really good, if your team only has 65-75 of them to distribute every year. The most wins any Pirates pitcher has recorded in any one season since Doug Drabek left for the green pastures of Houston is 15, by some guy named Todd Ritchie in 1999. (Ritchie was the guy they traded to the White Sox for Kip Wells and Josh Fogg a few years later; he’s been out of the majors, probably for good, since 2004.) Denny Neagle topped out at 14, and Ian Snell won 14 last year.

So, how could Tom Gorzelanny get to 13-7 at August’s end pitching for the Pirates? Well…

  1. He could just be so awesome that not even the Pirates could drag him down.
  2. He could be just pretty good, and have a big ol’ heaping dose of luck.
  3. He could have maybe pitched a generally easy schedule, this being the NL and all (that is, he’s avoided the Mets, Braves, Cubs, Brewers, Padres and Dodgers.)

The smart money is on 2. Let’s see.

First, Gorzelanny’s traditional stats. He’s pitched only 167.1 innings, tied for 23rd in the National League and only third on the Pirates (Ian Snell and Paul Maholm are 9th and 10th in the league.) He’s struck out 111 hitters–tied for 28th in the league with noted multimillionaire Barry Zito–and walked 51. His 3.50 ERA is tied for 10th in the league.

Intermediate stuff? Per nine innings, Gorzelanny has posted 6.1 strikeouts and 2.8 walks, a 2.2 to 1 ratio–pretty decent for a major league pitcher, but not the stuff all-stars are made of. Gorzelanny’s BABIP is .290, which is perfectly normal, maybe a tad low considering that PNC Park slightly favors pitchers and the Pirates’ defense is poor. His groundball percentage is 41.8%, another good-not-great number. He’s kept the ball in the park reasonably well, with 0.77 home runs allowed per nine.

His advanced metrics? Gorzelanny is 9th in the league in pitching VORP, just ahead of Cole Hamels, and in SNLVAR he’s in a four-way fight for 11th place. Win Shares agrees with VORP, ranking him 9th.

So Gorzelanny, whose won-lost record is somewhere around the 9th or 10th best in the league, ha stats clearly befitting of the 9th or 10th best pitcher in the league. Normally that’s no surprise, but given how badly the Pirates suck, why’s his won-lost where it should be, instead of well below where it should be?

Well, his losses have come against the Reds, Cubs, Cardinals, Rangers, Astros, Mets and Phillies. That’s a pretty mixed bag. He’s beaten the Dodgers, Cubs, Padres, Mariners, and Brewers twice; the rest of the wins came against the weaker sisters, but again, that’s not out of the realm of the ordinary, given how many weaker sisters the NL features.

So the answer is, yes, Gorzelanny’s been lucky, and in particular he’s been lucky with his bullpen. He’s won a lot of close games, and the Pirates’ normally comical bullpen has been good behind him, not blowing anywhere near the number of leads they usually do.

Now, a perhaps more interesting question: Will Gorzelanny improve?

He could, yes. His K rate has steadily improved during his two seasons–OK, one-plus seasons–and he’s significantly cut his walk rate, cut it nearly in half from last year, in fact. Now, he’s 25 years old and this could be the best we’ll see of him. He’s pretty much a two-trick pony–hard fastball and hard slider–but his changeup has improved since he’s made the majors, and if he refines that to a point where he can really rely on it, he could take another step forward and become a #2/fringe #1 kind of pitcher. Is it likely? It’s never likely, with a pitcher, but Gorzelanny shows the kind of indicators you look for. He’s still learning how to pitch in the major leagues, but he has time and talent to have a chance to take another step forward.