The NS9 Report is the start to your week. Posted bright and early every Monday morning, I’ll break down the three things that I’m looking for each week in Pirates land.
Bring on the NL Central
I believe it was Bob Walk who would say on the broadcast that “divisional games counted as two wins or two losses.” I always thought that was funny, but it really is kind of true…at least it feels that way no more significant then maybe this week. The Pirates just took 2-of-3 from the Brewers in Milwaukee, a huge divisional road series win and this week they’ll get more NL Central opponents. The Cardinals come into Pittsburgh for a four-game series starting tonight and then the Reds will be here for a weekend series. No off days…just seven games against teams you’re battling with in the division. These are huge games. Beat your divisional opponents to climb the standings and keep them down at the same time.
The boys talked about how big of a week this is for the team on Bucco Brew this morning which you can watch here. One of those teams you play this week, the Reds, are currently in first place, two games ahead of the Pirates. So if things go well with the Cardinals, this weekend could be a showdown for first-place in the NL Central. Here’s how the standings look currently…
Every team over .500 and all within 3.5 games of each other. It’s only April 27, but these are huge games. They’re basically going to be huge divisional games all season until there’s so kind of separation. As run differentials go, the Pirates are +24 runs, Reds are +1 (overachieving just a bit) and the Cardinals are -15. I can’t wait to see how these games go this week. If the Pirates don’t come in here and spank the Cardinals 3/4 games, it’s going to be a very disappointed fan base that includes this blogger.
Jared Jones and Jared Triolo to Rehab
Alex Stumpf talked about Jared Jones on his latest episode of OffBeat today, which you can check out here, but his long road from injury is coming to an end. Ben Cherington announced on his radio show Sunday that Jones will begin his rehab starts with one on Wednesday for Single-A Bradenton. I expect him to make starts at Bradenton, Altoona and Indy (probably more than one at some levels) before being called back up to the Majors, but folks we are close to seeing Jared Jones back on the mound. They won’t rush him, but we may be four weeks out from seeing it depending on how he looks and pitches during these rehab starts. Like Alex said on OffBeat, Jones is eligible to come off the 60-day IL on May 26. That’s great news for Jones, this team and rotation. It may be even more important with how Carmen Mlodzinski has looked his past two starts.
I’ve seen some fans on Twitter that think Jones will go to the bullpen once he’s called up. I think that’s foolish and not going to happen. Jared Jones provided something that we hadn’t seen in the Pirates rotation in a long time. Paul Skenes is Paul Skenes and arguably the best pitcher in the game, but Jones’ starts were electric and had the fan base buzzing his rookie season. When he’s ready, Jones will be in the rotation, mark my words. I’m looking forward to seeing how his first rehab start goes this week.
Another Jared, Jared Triolo is also in Bradenton for a rehab start and has made two starts this past weekend already. He’s on his way back as well and won’t likely take as long as Jones to be back with the team. I don’t think anyone has necessarily missed Triolo in the lineup, but he does provide something this team severely lacks: Versatility where he can play all over the diamond and provide stellar defense.
Easy on the Strikeouts, Boys
I don’t want to overreact here with this lineup because they’ve been so much better than last year…they’re a good offense essentially, but the strikeouts last week were a bit concerning. The Pirates bats have middle of the road across the board in MLB which is all we wanted the past two seasons, just an average offense that can hit some balls over the fence. We have that now, but the strikeouts are starting to tick up.
The Pirates struck out 10 time against Jacob deGrom and then whiffed nine times against Brewers starter Jacob Misiorowski and then Sunday they struggled big time against Kyle Harrison, striking out 12 times (his career high) and continued against the Brewers bullpen for an absurd 18 total strikeouts. In the entire Pirates history, they’ve only struck out that many times or more 9 total times (chart below per Baseball Reference). The last time they struck out that many times was 2022 when they struck out 18 times against the Marlins on July 24 and 20 (!) times against the Mets on September 18. It can’t happen. Strikeouts are fine in today’s game if you’re hitting home runs, but not that many.
Overall this season, their K% has risen to 24.5% which is 5th worst in MLB…only the White Sox, Reds, Rockies and Angels have struck out more. Just a week ago on April 20, they had a 22.9% which was middle of the road and just shows how bad this past week was with the whiffs. They struck out nearly a third of the time (30.9%) this past week. Yikes. They need to clean up and let’s hope they do so this week against the Cardinals and Reds.
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