The Pirates secured at least a series tie against the Nats on Wednesday night in a mostly uneventful 2-0 victory. The Pirates were led by Carmen Mlodzinski pitching six shutout innings against a Nationals team that is 5th in the league in runs scored this season. The Bucs continue to do what good teams do, avoiding losing streaks and dropping series to inferior opponents. They will go for the series victory Thursday after moving to 11-7 and remain tied for first place in the NL Central with the Cincinnati Reds. Here are my three takeaways from their comfortable win.
Carmen Mlodzinski is Making Roster Decisions Hard
When the season started and Mlodzinski was named the 5th starter, everyone generally assumed he would be replaced immediately once Jared Jones was healthy and was able to rejoin the major league roster. However, Mlod is fighting his hardest to never go back to the bullpen, it seems (especially since he almost retired last year in a push to become a starter). Carmen was magnificent against the Nationals, pitching 6 shutout innings while giving up only 2 walks and hits apiece and striking out 5. One of my larger concerns about him remaining in the rotation was him continuing to fill up the basepaths with runners despite having a low FIP. He showed a lot of growth towards fixing that problem tonight as the bases were devoid of Nationals runners.
For his overall body of work, Mlod has now pitched in 20 innings and posted a 1.77 ERA and a 2.52 FIP and has a 0.6 fWAR. He also boasts the best ERA out of anyone in the rotation, which is not something anyone would have predicted before the season started. Questions will have to be asked as Jared Jones starts to throw bullpens and eventually start throwing against live competition. Do the Pirates still remove Mlodzinski? Do they put Bubba in the bullpen? Or is the rotation good enough as is to simply let Jones ride out this year in a piggyback role or as an electric backend-of-the-bullpen option? The good news is that it is a very good problem to have.
Hitting Depth Remains the X Factor
The Pirates offense was pretty bad Wednesday night, and most players had a bad game. Five of the starters failed to reach base in any capacity, and their two hottest hitters (Oneil Cruz and Brandon Lowe) went a combined 0-for-8 at the plate. On last year’s Pirates team, this would be a death blow because they did not have the capable hitters to sustain the top of the lineup playing badly. However, the three guys behind them (Reynolds, O’Hearn, and Ozuna) picked up the slack by delivering the two game-winning runs in the first and reaching base a combined eight times. It is the reason why the Pirates have been able to win games despite Ozuna (their big FA bat) and Horwitz (team leader in OPS last year) being offensive black holes.
Luckily, both Ozuna and Horwitz have now shown signs of life with their bats, and the team is far better off for it. Ozuna drove in the first run of the game and had one of his first extra base hits of the season last night with a scorching double. It feels good to look up and down a lineup for once in this Cherington era and have faith that the 7-9 guys can and will do damage on any given night. Especially combined with this pitching staff.
The Pitching Staff Remains Dominant
The Pirates dealt another shutout behind four talented arms in Mason Montgomery, Carmen Mlodzinski, Gregory Soto and Dennis Santana. Between these four pitchers, they have given up a mere 11 earned runs (and Montgomery accounts for almost half of them). As things stand today, this Pirates staff is currently 5th in the league in terms of earned runs allowed at 59, four behind the league-leading Braves. Every expectation we had of these arms has been lived up to and even surpassed in this early season. The Pirates only scored two runs and didn’t really threaten much else outside of the first inning. Despite this, the pitching staff ensured that this game never felt in danger. They allowed only seven base runners on all night, and two of those were hitting CJ Abrams. This is now the 10th game in 18 tries where the pitchers have allowed three or fewer runs, and we finally have an offense that can take advantage of a team that can shut down offenses for long spans of time. The Pirates are also top 10 in the league in strikeouts, 6th in home runs allowed, and 3rd in opponent batting average. If they are able to clean up a few spots in the middle of the bullpen, we are looking at a staff with almost no weaknesses.
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