The Pirates are opening the second half with a rearranged rotation, and the timing says plenty about where they are right now.
When Pittsburgh heads to Progressive Field for a July 17-19 series against the Cleveland Guardians, the order will be Jared Jones in the opener, Braxton Ashcraft in Game 2 and Paul Skenes in the finale. Mitch Keller, who had been lined up to follow Jones, gets bumped back instead. That pushes Skenes up two days and leaves the rotation picture looking like Jones, Ashcraft, Skenes, then likely Keller and Bubba Chandler after that.
The move doesn’t change who’s in the rotation, but it does change the rhythm of it. And Keller’s recent work makes the adjustment easy to understand.
Over his last 11 starts, he’s gone 2-6 with a 7.03 ERA across 56.1 innings, allowing 44 earned runs and 11 home runs with a 5.59 FIP. His latest outing was another rough one: three runs, a home run, and just three innings in a 10-5 loss to the Atlanta Braves at PNC Park on July 9.
That’s a sharp contrast from the start Keller got off to. In his first eight outings, he was 4-1 with a 2.87 ERA, 15 earned runs in 44 innings, a .206 batting average against and a 1.04 WHIP.
He also turned in six quality starts in that stretch. Since then, he’s managed only three quality starts and has reached six innings just four times, which isn’t the kind of workload Pittsburgh needs from one of its veteran arms.
The extra rest should give Keller 11 days between starts, with a likely return against the New York Yankees in the series opener at Yankee Stadium on July 20. After the Braves game, Keller talked about using the time to sharpen things up before the stretch run.
“Definitely some rest, I think everybody can benefit from that midway through," Keller said. "Just being able to get some more detailed work in with the longer break. I got three extra days up until the All-Star Break, so I think it would be a good time to really hone in on some mechanic things and just some pitching things too that I can get better at for the second half of the year.”
Pittsburgh enters the weekend in the thick of the National League Wild Card race at 50-47, two games back and still very much in the hunt for its first postseason trip since 2015.
Jones will get the ball first after turning in the best start of his career against the Braves on July 8. He threw six perfect innings and struck out eight, but he’s still under an 80-pitch, five-inning limit as he works back from internal brace surgery on his right elbow. That restriction kept him from extending a run that had history written all over it.
Ashcraft follows, and he’s been the Pirates’ most effective starter this season. The All-Star is 9-3 in 19 starts with a 3.49 ERA, 128 strikeouts, 27 walks, a .235 batting average against and a 1.11 WHIP. He has also thrown 113.1 innings, fourth-most in the National League and tied for seventh-most in MLB.
The way Pittsburgh has lined this up should also help the bullpen. Jones starts tend to demand more relief work, while Ashcraft’s outings have allowed the staff to breathe a little easier.
Then comes Skenes, who is trying to get all the way back after a rough two-month stretch. He was also an All-Star, and he remains one of the best pitchers in baseball. In his last two starts against the Braves and Brewers, he allowed four earned runs over 11.1 innings and picked up two wins after the Pirates had lost his previous nine starts.
If Skenes finds his top gear again, that changes everything for Pittsburgh’s second-half push. A strong start against Cleveland would be a clean way to begin the new half and a big step for a team still chasing October.
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