The Pirates will turn to Carmen Mlodzinski this afternoon as they look to avoid a season-opening sweep at the hands of the Mets. Through two games the bullpen is not in the greatest shape, but we do have some arms to turn to.
I previously thought Hunter Barco would be the one pitching after Mlod today, but after Barco was called upon to pitch extras yesterday, it looks like Jose Urquidy will be the man to follow Mlod today. We’ve yet to see Urquidy pitch through two games this season, but I would bet on seeing him finally today. Yohan Ramirez, Mason Montgomery and Isaac Mattson will also be available today.
The question for me is how Don Kelly plays his bullpen with Dennis Santana, Gregory Soto and Justin Lawrence today. All three relievers have pitched two-of-the-last-three days. While I’m sure those three are all available, I doubt Kelly really wants to call on them this early in the season because it would likely make them unavailable for the game tomorrow in Cincinnati. I think ideally in Kelly’s mind, Mlod and Urquidy would go 6-7 innings and then would only need a couple others to finish out the game. If Mlod struggles and only goes two innings or something, it may be Urquidy for as long as he can go to save the rest of the arms. We’ll see how this one plays out.
For Mlodzinski, it’s his first start of the season and I’m interested to see the new pitch mix Carmen as Alex Stumpf talked about in one of his first episodes of OffBeat. Mlod finished the season on a roll last year, with a 1.63 ERA in his last 23 appearances which included only three starts while the rest was out of the pen.
We all know what the issue has been for Carmen throughout his career. He’s been a much more effective pitcher as a reliever than a starter as his career numbers are posted above there via Baseball Reference. Through 17 starts, Mlod has a 4.47 ERA and just 56.1 innings, an average of just 3.3 innings per start. Will it be different this season? Can Mlod show that can be an effective starter in the bigs and consistently go five innings every outing?
I’m imagine Mlod has about two months run time in this rotation until Jared Jones returns. Barring any other injuries, he would be the odd man out once Jones is back so I see this as a final audition for Mlod, one last chance to prove he can be a starting pitcher. And do the Pirates ever need him to have his best stuff today. I think Don Kelly and the Bucs will be thrilled if Mlod goes a solid five innings today.
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