Jameson Taillon’s TTO struggles boil down to one simple thing

When Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Neal Huntington cited Jameson Taillon’s Times Through the Order penalty (TTO) as an explanation for Clint Hurdle’s quick hook against the Phillies, it kind of made sense.

After crunching the numbers and looking at the data, does it still make sense?

Let’s find out.

I was talking to a pitching coach in the St. Louis Cardinals organization last week (please don’t hate me), and he told me that one of the hardest things to do at a major league level was to put guys away.

“Those guys get paid too,” he told me. “So if you get to two strikes or ahead on a guy, you feel good about your chances. And the numbers probably show that, but you’d be surprised how many…