The Pittsburgh Pirates came up short again against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sept. 16, falling 5-4 at PNC Park, but Jared Jones kept showing the kind of stuff that has defined his September.
Jones allowed three runs over five innings and matched his season high with nine strikeouts, continuing a strong run even in defeat. He didn’t quite reach the peak of his first two starts this month, but he still had enough to work through a tough Brewers lineup.
His usual mix was there from the start, with the four-seam fastball and slider doing most of the work. Jones also leaned on his curveball more than usual, and that pitch paid off with two strikeouts and three whiffs on just 13 pitches.
The slider was sharp as well. Jones got five strikeouts on it and produced a 40% whiff rate, with 15 of his 25 strikeouts in three September starts coming on the pitch.
Even with the runs on the board, Jones liked what he saw from his own performance.
“I thought everything was working how I wanted it to work today," Jones said. "From the execution and pitching standpoint, I thought that was one of my better games.
I just got baseballed. There was not a lot of hard contact today and I gave up three runs.
It is what it is.”
Milwaukee did its damage in bunches. The Brewers scored twice in the second inning, then added another run in the fifth before Jones exited after 91 pitches.
In the second, Milwaukee strung together four straight singles with two outs. In the fifth, the big hit was an RBI double.
Jones didn’t give up much loud contact, either. He allowed five hard-hit balls among 13 batted-ball events, a 38% rate, and that was part of what made the outing feel so competitive against such a difficult offense.
“Take at-bats as they are," Jones said. "They are scrappy.
They’re hard to get out. There are a lot of guys that I see in that lineup that I’m like, ‘What the hell do I throw you now?’”
For the Pirates, the encouraging part is that Jones has been piling up these kinds of outings all month. On Sept. 4, he threw six scoreless innings and tied his season high with nine strikeouts in a 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Angels, giving up three hits and striking out seven batters on the slider.
Then on Sept. 10 against the Chicago White Sox at Rate Field, he carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning, finished with just one hit and two walks, and struck out eight over a season-high seven innings.
Across those three September starts, Jones is 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA over 18.0 innings. That’s a sharp turnaround from August, when he went 0-4 with a 7.40 ERA in five starts over 20.2 innings.
The Pirates are hoping this is the version of Jones that sticks, because the way he’s pitching now makes him look like a starter they can build around. His final two starts will matter.
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