Jared Jones didn’t just look sharp in Pittsburgh’s 8-0 win over the Atlanta Braves on July 8. He looked untouchable.
The Pirates right-hander carved through six perfect innings at PNC Park, turning in the best start of his season and the best outing of his career. He struck out eight, his highest total of the year, and needed only 77 pitches to do it. For a pitcher still being handled carefully after a long injury layoff, it was as electric as it was efficient.
Even with the perfection intact, Jones came out after six, and that was by design. Pittsburgh has been cautious since bringing him back on May 29, more than a year and a half after his previous MLB start, following a right elbow injury and internal brace surgery. This was the deepest he has gone since returning, and he had only topped 80 pitches once before, when he threw 81 over 4.2 innings against the Cincinnati Reds on June 27.
Manager Don Kelly said after the game that the club is still working around a roughly five-inning, 80-pitch framework, with this start serving as the exception because Jones was so efficient. Kelly also made clear why the hook came when it did.
“Yeah, it’s a tough one, man, and I think that we’ve talked about it before. Health is the most important thing, winning the game and then personal accomplishments, third, and wanting guys to stay healthy," Kelly said.
"Health is the number one things with these guys because we need Jared for the rest of the season throwing the ball like that. Trying to push him right now when he’s only had five-ups, there’s just no way.”
Pirates general manager Ben Cherington had already signaled before the outing that the team would keep monitoring Jones’ workload as the season goes on. Cherington said the organization expects pitch counts that let Jones stay in games long enough to matter, while keeping him in the rotation for the rest of the year.
"I think we want to keep an eye on it this year, first year back and I would say, we think he’ll have pitch counts that allow him to get far enough into games that he can win in the role he’s in," Cherington said.
"We don’t want to shut him down or anything like that. We want him to continue pitching for the rest of the year.
We’ll be mindful of it. We think he’s in a good spot.
Physically he’s recovering well. Velo’s there.
"To me, he’s done a lot of good things on the mound. Maybe a little bad luck here and there.
There’s still some command and execution stuff that takes a little bit of time coming off the rehab. We feel like he’s in a good spot physically, and he’s on the right track."
Against Atlanta, the game plan was simple: fastball and slider. Jones leaned hard on those two pitches, throwing 55 four-seam fastballs and 20 sliders, while mixing in just one changeup and one curveball.
The results were clean and overwhelming. He allowed only two hard-hit balls among 10 batted-ball events, produced 14 whiffs on 43 swings, and opened 11 of his 18 plate appearances with strikes. His slider was especially nasty, drawing seven whiffs on 12 swings and accounting for five of his eight strikeouts, even with a near homer allowed to former Pirates catcher Joey Bart on the pitch.
"Just went back to the bread and butter: fastball-slider," Jones said postgame. "One changeup, but fastball-slider the entire game and just kind of felt like myself out there again."
Jones wasn’t bothered by the early exit, either. After the sixth inning, he and Kelly had a brief moment near the tunnel, but Jones said they were just “messing around.”
"It does suck," Jones said. "Something's cool coming on, but I'm on what, my eighth start off of surgery? I completely understand it and it is what it is."
The outing followed another strong performance on July 2, when Jones gave up one run over four innings with six strikeouts in a 6-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.
Through eight starts, Jones is 1-1 with a 4.64 ERA. He has held opponents to a .230 batting average and a 1.21 WHIP, while striking out 37 and walking 11.
He may not have gotten the chance to chase perfection beyond six innings, but if this version of Jones sticks, Pittsburgh has something valuable on its hands.
In Other News...
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Pirates May Have A Surprising Option At Fifth Overall
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For a club trying to balance immediate upside with long-term development, the fifth pick could come down to what kind of player the front office wants to bet on. Flora fits the profile of a polished college pitcher, while Booth offers the sort of younger, higher-risk ceiling that can appeal in the top half of the first round. The Pirates still have time before July 11-12, but the range of names already in play suggests this pick may not be as straightforward as it first looked. [Read more 🡒]