The battle for the Pirates fifth starter spot has been solved, and it was won by a familiar face.<\/p>\n
Manager Don Kelly joined the SportsNet Pittsburgh broadcast on Sunday as the Pirates faced the Red Sox.<\/p>\n
Kelly confirmed that Carmen Mlodzinski will begin the season in the Pirates rotation.<\/p>\n
Mlodzinski beat out left-hander Hunter Barco and righty free-agent signings Jose Urquidy and Mike Clevinger.<\/p>\n
He will start Sunday\u2019s series finale against the New York Mets on March 28.<\/p>\n
Barco and Urquidy have both made the Opening Day club, but will begin the year in the bullpen. Clevinger was outrighted to the minor leagues on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Mlodzinski pitched well in four spring training outings (three starts). He allowed four earned runs over 12.1 innings with 14 strikeouts compared to two walks.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old righty delivered five innings of two-run ball in his final spring start against the Orioles on March 14, closing with a 2.92 ERA.<\/p>\n
Urquidy allowed 11 earned runs in 10 spring training innings after being considered the favorite to land the spot.<\/p>\n
Primarily a reliever during his three-year career (2023-25), Mlodzinski enters the season in the rotation for the first time.<\/p>\n
In 34 games (12 starts) last year, Mlodzinski earned a 3.55 ERA, a 1.30 WHIP, struck out 89, and walked 27 over 89 innings.<\/p>\n
Mlodzinski was one of the Pirates best relievers and was a little surprising to see the team attempt to make him a starter again.<\/p>\n
In 22 relief appearances, Mlodzinski totaled a 2.15 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, and .235 opponent batting average in 50.1 innings.<\/p>\n
The former 31st overall pick in the 2020 draft made 12 starts. It didn\u2019t go nearly as well, registering a 4.99 ERA, .293 opponent average, 1.52 WHIP, 85 hits, 16 walks, and 36 strikeouts spanning 48.2 total frames.<\/p>\n
Mlodzinski was frequently removed from outings before facing the lineup a third time around. Opponents hit only .150 in the first and .239 in the second innings, but .326 and .404 in the third and fourth innings, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Pirates are going to give Mlodzinski another chance to prove himself in the rotation after an impressive spring.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh begins 2026 in New York as Paul Skenes takes the mound facing the Mets on Thursday at 1:15 p.m. on NBC and Peacock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The battle for the Pirates fifth starter spot has been solved, and it was won by a familiar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,4,10,60829,5493,1141,776,64,4297],"class_list":["post-639864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-pirates","tag-pirates-roster","tag-pirates-analysis","tag-pirates-news","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-pittsburghpirates"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116281555186964932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}