The Milwaukee Brewers’ 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Sunday’s National League Championship Series opener offered the Pittsburgh Pirates a pretty sharp reminder of what a true October bullpen can look like.
This wasn’t about one flamethrowing closer slamming the door. It was about a whole relief group taking turns, grabbing the baton and never letting go.
After Jacob Misiorowski left in the fifth inning, DL Hall covered the bridge, Abner Uribe worked a scoreless sixth, Aaron Ashby took the seventh and eighth, and Trevor Megill finished the ninth despite plenty of tension. Four relievers.
Nearly five innings. No runs allowed.
That’s the standard the Pirates still have to chase.
Pittsburgh finally has some real hope in the late innings thanks to Mason Montgomery, who turned into one of the team’s best stories in the second half of 2026. The hard-throwing lefty turned himself into a legitimate weapon, won National League Reliever of the Month honors for September and, from July 27 through September 25, piled up 24 2/3 straight scoreless innings with 37 strikeouts and just seven walks.
The Pirates also added Luke Weaver at the trade deadline, and that move mattered. Weaver is under contract through 2027, with the New York Mets covering $6 million of his $11 million salary. Put Montgomery and Weaver together, and Pittsburgh has the look of a strong late-game pairing.
But Sunday in Milwaukee was a reminder that two relievers don’t make a bullpen.
What if the starter exits after four innings? What if Montgomery and Weaver have already worked back-to-back nights?
Who takes the seventh when the opponent’s middle of the order is due? Those are the kinds of questions contenders can answer.
The Pirates still can’t afford to leave them hanging.
And the uncertainty doesn’t stop there. Gregory Soto is headed for free agency after signing a one-year deal last offseason.
Kirby Yates, brought in at the trade deadline to add another experienced arm, announced his retirement in September. Those departures only deepen the concern in a group that wasn’t especially deep in the first place.
Pittsburgh lived through the downside of that all season. Early blown leads hurt them, and general manager Ben Cherington eventually had to remake the bullpen at the trade deadline. That kind of delay is hard to justify for a team that wants to contend.
Montgomery’s breakout shouldn’t be a reason to slow down spending on relief help. If anything, it should sharpen the focus. The Pirates already have the kind of young rotation that ought to make bullpen investment even more urgent, with Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft forming a promising foundation.
The next step is obvious: add more trustworthy setup arms, build out the middle relief and give manager Don Kelly options instead of asking him to survive on a narrow handful of late-inning choices.
Milwaukee won 103 regular-season games and is now three wins from the World Series. The bullpen isn’t the only reason, but it’s impossible to ignore how much that kind of depth matters in October.
The Pirates have found a reliever worth building around. The bigger test is whether they build the rest of the structure around him.
In Other News...
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For Pittsburgh, the contrast is hard to miss. The Pirates spent their deadline almost entirely on pitching help, stockpiling bullpen arms while their offense remained untouched, and the result was a club that never got close to the postseason. In a year when another teams deadline additions are already swinging October games, the Pirates choice to lean one way and not the other looks even more costly in hindsight. [Read more 🡒]
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The practical side of a lockout only sharpens the optics. Clubs would be unable to promote player name, image or likeness while the work stoppage drags on, but they would still be able to sell merchandise, leaving team-facing messaging in a stripped-down, awkward place. For a Pirates fan base already prone to skepticism, the contrast between what can be marketed and what cannot may make the whole episode feel even more like a referendum on ownership than a standard labor dispute. [Read more 🡒]
Pirates Face A Risky Offensive Bet They Can't Ignore
The Pirates are weighing a familiar kind of offseason dilemma: whether to lean on experience or trust a prospect whose ascent has been fast enough to raise hopes and question marks in the same breath. Brandon Lowes looming free agency puts the club in a spot where it has to decide whether to keep a proven presence in the lineup or make room for Murf Gray, whose rise through the system has become one of the more intriguing developments in the organization.
Grays progress has given Pittsburgh a real reason to think big, but the gap between minor-league promise and major-league certainty is still the issue. For a team trying to build without losing sight of the present, the decision is less about upside alone and more about how much risk it is willing to take with an offense that could use steadiness as much as impact. [Read more 🡒]