The Pirates Have a Starting Pitching Problem They Can’t Fix

I said before this series, the Pirates need to win two in Miami, and they're not going to.

They were embarrassed 8-2 on Wednesday in a bullpen game.

Yeah, a bullpen game, that thing that would have been the death of them about three, four weeks ago.

It didn't work out, and I suspect we're going to see more bullpen games.

So while tomorrow we're going to talk about the season and the collapse, today I just want to focus on something that the 2026 Pirates have to address if they just want to cross the finish line.

Who is going to make these starts?

Good morning, and welcome to OffBeat, here on North Shore Nine, presented by FanDuel.

My name is Alex Stumpf, and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh Pirates.

Starting pitching depth was always going to be a concern with this team.

They traded away Mike Burrows, and they traded away Yohan Oviedo, two moves that made sense for what they wanted to accomplish.

The Burrows trade, really good.

Brandon Lowe has been an impact player.

Jake Mangum has done a good job in reserve.

Mason Montgomery looks like someone who could be part of this bullpen for years to come.

It's a good trade.

And even the Oviedo trade, even if Jhostynxon Garcia hasn't really played well, you can still see the value in it.

He could pan out.

But, even then, even whenever they made those trades, it was like, okay, they're going to supplement this group in some way.

They're going to sign a veteran free agent.

They always sign a veteran left-hander.

And they didn't.

And it turns out, maybe they didn't need to early in the year.

They had a pretty good rotation going.

But, as the years progressed, and this rotation has not impressed, and almost everyone has regressed, not adding a pitcher, at least at the trade deadline, looks like a confusing decision.

This is a team that knew they were going to have a lot of young pitchers eclipsing their previous high for innings pitched.

They may not have been able to foresee Paul Skenes's fastball velocity was going to go down to 95, 96.

And the Mitch Keller injury happening the day before the deadline, that's tough.

That's really bad timing to find out that one of your five starting pitchers is out for the rest of the year.

But, they still could have made a move.

And as we talk about, this lineup and why didn't they add a right-handed bat, not adding a pitcher, I think, is more confusing.

Because the bat, you at least have Oneo Cruz, who was supposed to be back from the injured list, not terribly long.

You might get Ryan O'Hearn back.

You might get Konnor Griffin back.

The injuries could be like, okay, that's how you improve the offense in the last portion of this season.

Don't really have that for the starting pitching.

Especially whenever Paul Skenes's is being pulled after 65 pitches in five innings.

I can't help but wonder, that's two starts in a row.

I can't help but wonder if this is maybe a five-and-dive portion of the season for him.

Just trying to get him to cross the finish line of this year.

But, it's not just him.

Jared Jones, he's always going to have restrictions this year.

Bubba Chandler, I don't know if he's going to pitch more than six innings the rest of this way.

Same with Braxton Ashcraft, who is also throwing more innings than he ever has before.

So, you have some legitimate concerns of how deep can your starting pitchers go into games.

And, right now, the fifth spot in the rotation is basically a bullpen game.

Carmen Mlodzinski has started both.

And, he has not done well in either.

Wednesday was just a poor start.

Four earned runs allowed.

Over two and a third.

Wasn't really locating.

Was walking batters.

Wasn't missing bats.

It was a rough outing.

And, in a lot of cases, it's like, yeah, it's a starting or a relief pitcher converting back to being a starting pitcher.

That's going to be tough.

Here, I don't know if you can really say that because they're not asking him to go five or six innings.

Don Kelly told reporters in Miami before the game he was hoping for three or four.

And, that's basically what he's been doing out of this bullpen roll.

So, now you have a pitcher who is thrown, basically, within one actual inning, the same amount of innings as a starting pitcher and as a relief pitcher.

And, as a relief pitcher, he has a 215 ERA over 50 and a third innings.

And, in 49 and a third innings, he has a 547 ERA as a starter.

I go back to May.

And, everything that went down whenever he was demoted to the bullpen.

Man, that's not a pretty, you're not making a compelling case to start if your ERA is over three runs higher as a starting pitcher compared to a reliever.

I still do think he is going to get a lot of innings on those fifth days in the rotation.

It might not always be as a starter.

It might be as a bulk guy.

It might, he might have an opener in front of him.

There's a lot of different ways that it could go.

But, can you really do that the rest of the way with this bullpen?

If you don't have anyone else in your rotation that you just feel like any given day he could go seven innings and give everyone a breather?

I look at Bakar and it's like, he might throw 100 innings this year.

I look at Yohan Ramirez and he might throw close to 100 innings this year.

And Yohan Ramirez has been a pretty dedicated, like, one or two-up reliever his entire career before this year.

And then he was throwing those innings on Tuesday.

And he had a really good outing Tuesday.

He kept it a ball game, with three scoreless frames.

But it's, you see, the velocity start to fluctuate.

You get concerned a little bit.

Yohan Ramirez has had an outstanding year, all things considered, for this team.

But, I don't know how many times I could count on him to go three ups, three innings.

Same with Bakar.

And there are a couple other guys in AAA Indianapolis that I'm sure we are going to see again.

Khristian Curtis was activated off of Indianapolis' injured list on Wednesday.

Had a really good outing in Cleveland.

I think he's still developing as a pitcher, as a prospect.

But if he has to throw major league innings, you can do that.

Werber Dotel could potentially be stretched out again.

I could see him go three, four innings in an outing.

Same with Antwone Kelly, if not pushing it a little further.

But, man, that's a lot to ask of your guys.

That's transactions.

That's ups and downs.

That's just trying to find a way to cobble together enough innings to get through this last quarter of the season.

And whenever you have these types of discussions, that's why this team, I think this season's over.

Because you can't have these types of conversations.

And even if you do go on a great run to insert yourself back into the wild card discussion, even if you have a legendary run and you make it into the postseason, it's like, how do you beat a team in the postseason?

Whenever your starting pitchers can't go deep into games and all of your relief pitchers are being asked to go three or four innings each up.

This is a team that did drastically improve their bullpen.

Their biggest addition being Luke Weaver, who has thrown 11 pitches as a Pirates so far.

And they weren't even meaningful pitches.

They were down.

This is seven straight series losses in a time of year where you really separate the pretenders and the contenders.

At this point, I look at, okay, regroup.

How do you get this rotation into 2027?

Unless, like, Braxton Ashcraft or Bubba Chandler get hurt or their stuff really drops off.

Really want them to get through the whole year.

Pitch six full months.

If they're five in dives, if they're shorter starts, figure it out.

That'll benefit the 2027 team.

Just having them have that experience.

Know that next year, whenever you get to September, not everyone's going to be as gassed.

Have your starting pitchers run through the bag.

You can do that.

But, again, you're going to need to find middle relievers.

You're going to have to find ways to just get through these games.

And, man, it would be a whole lot easier if they just found a way to acquire a fifth starter at the deadline.

I don't think it would have made a difference at the end of the day of getting this team to the postseason.

I think the flaws with this club have finally shown themselves not having real right-handed hitters.

You could attribute some of that to the Konnor Griffin injury, but, Marcelo Zuno wasn't that guy.

Nick Gonzales has had reverse splits.

Jared Triolo has had reverse splits.

They haven't had anyone who could hit a lefty.

That was always an inherent flaw with this team.

The bullpen was one also, and it's the strength right now, and it's really their only path to them completing this year, I think.

Just finding a way to cobble together some bullpen games, and that's assuming they want to stick with a five-man rotation.

September, in years past, we've seen them go six-man.

Build in that extra day if there isn't, like, a scheduled off day.

That's surely going to be a lot of bullpen innings, too.

This was supposed to be one of the best rotations in baseball, and right now, they are 21st in team ERA at 446.

They have a higher ERA this year than last.

Everyone pretty much across the board has.

It's an issue, because this was a team coming into the year that was supposed to be anchored by its young starting pitching.

And there is a little bit of a curse with young starting pitching.

You have to be more careful with their arms.

They are doing stuff that they have never done before.

They are going to be learning experiences, and that was always going to be part of this team.

And I don't know if this team was built with that fully in mind.

It's different if Mitch Keller's still healthy and still throwing innings, but he wasn't having a really good year.

This wasn't the Mitch Keller of old where you could count on him to go five, six innings every day no matter what.

That's what this team needs.

They don't really have that guy right now.

So it's going to put a lot of stress on this bullpen.

And it's going to put a lot of stress on guys like Carmen Mijinsky.

That whenever he does get a chance to start, he can't pitch to a 547 ERA.

If he's only expected to go three or four innings, just let it eat.

Don't pitch like a starting pitcher.

Pitch like the relief pitcher that you've been the last couple months.

That's fine, but he needs to really go those three or four.

And he didn't on Wednesday.

And that game spiraled out of control.

I think tomorrow we are going to talk about the historic part of another collapse with this team.

But first, you've got to find a way to finish 2026.

And it's not exactly clear how they're going to do that right now.

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