Bucs put up their Duke

PITTSBURGH – What a time to be a rookie in Pittsburgh.

Ben Roethlisberger enjoys the best season by a rookie quarterback in NFL history on a 15-1 Steelers team. Jason Bay is the National League rookie of the year, the Pirates’ first such recipient. Hockey wunderkind Sidney Crosby is on his way to the Penguins, first stopping over for a Thursday night visit with Jay Leno.

Now, just when it almost seems unfair to have so many fresh faces and so much youthful talent concentrated in one city, Zach Duke is emerging not just as one of the best rookie pitchers in Pirates history, but in recent major league seasons.

Off to the best start by a Pirates rookie in 35 years, Duke has yet to have a bad start for a team that has known nothing but bad times over 12 consecutive losing seasons. He’s 5-0 with an earned run average of 1.54 in seven games. His 0.87 ERA in July was the best of any pitcher in the majors, rookie or otherwise.

“I expected to have some success, but this has surpassed every expectation I had,” said Duke, a 22-year-old left-hander with the polish and poise of a much-older pitcher. “I’m kind of on cloud nine right now and I’m very confident. But I’m not going to get complacent. I still have a lot of work to do.”

So far, opposing teams such as Atlanta and the Chicago Cubs would disagree.

Mixing a sharp breaking ball with a changeup he throws consistently down in the strike zone and a more-than-adequate 92-mph fastball, Duke had allowed only one run in his last 30 innings before allowing four on Saturday. That’s a remarkable feat given he’s pitched only 46 2/3 innings. “The Pirates got a gem in him,” said Atlanta’s Chipper Jones.

There is considerable evidence Duke will be more than a one-month wonder like Jim Nelson, the last Pirates rookie to go at least 4-0. Shortly after his 1970 call-up, Nelson hurt his rotator cuff – what then was an effectively career-ending injury. He won only two more games and was out of the majors for good by age 23.

Duke was not a heralded prospect like Crosby or Roethlisberger while growing up, and was just a 20th-round draft pick out of Texas’ Midway High School in 2001. But he needed only three-plus seasons to scurry through the Pirates’ farm system, going 43-17 while doing so.

Promoted to the majors July 1 after starting the season 12-3 at Triple-A Indianapolis, Duke beat the Phillies 2-1 on July 7 for his first career win. He outdueled Cubs 300-game winner Greg Maddux while pitching eight innings in a 3-0 victory July 16.

What Maddux saw was a much younger, left-handed version of himself: a starting pitcher who doesn’t need exceptional velocity to win, but rather a command of his pitches and the confidence to throw any pitch at any time in any count.

“I saw a good fastball, changeup and curveball,” Maddux said. “Who cares about the other stuff? There’s a lot of guys with poise who can’t throw. He can throw.”

Atlanta manager Bobby Cox saw much the same thing as Duke pitched 8 1/3 innings of a 4-1 Pirates victory last Monday.

“That kid, I don’t know how he went in the 20th round,” Cox said. “Somebody did a good scouting job – or a bad scouting job. He’s as good as they come.”

Duke expected to be a success in the majors – he promised Indianapolis manager Trent Jewett as much when they said goodbye following Duke’s call-up – and so did Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon.

Although Duke had never pitched above Double-A, McClendon lobbied hard in spring training for Duke to be on the opening-day roster. But small-market economics played into the decision to send him to Indianapolis. If Duke had started the season in Pittsburgh, he would have been arbitration-eligible after the 2007 season; now, it won’t be until after 2008.

“He’s got the whole package,” McClendon said of Duke, one of five rookies with the team. “The young man is special. We’ve got something to be excited about.”

Duke is the main reason why the Pirates are drawing some encouragement even as they trudge toward a 13th consecutive losing season, three shy of the major league record. Because of Bay, Duke, rookie center fielder Chris Duffy, first baseman Brad Eldred and injured but promising left-hander Oliver Perez – he struck out 239 last year at age 23 – the Pirates can finally peer into the future after so many years of living off the past.