The Pirates haven’t said it outright, but their weekend pitching plan is starting to read like a verdict on Carmen Mlodzinski.
Pittsburgh will open its nine-game road trip in Los Angeles with Bubba Chandler on Friday and Jared Jones on Saturday, but Sunday’s starter is still listed as TBA. That blank spot stands out because it would normally have been Mlodzinski’s turn, and his recent work has made that omission feel meaningful.
Mlodzinski was knocked around again Monday in an 8-5 loss to the Detroit Tigers, giving up four runs on eight hits and a walk in just three innings. Since the Pirates shifted him out of the bullpen and into a pseudo-starter role after Mitch Keller’s season-ending injury, the results have been rough from the start.
In three appearances in that role, Mlodzinski has allowed 13 earned runs in 7.1 innings, a 15.95 ERA that has repeatedly put Pittsburgh in catch-up mode and forced the bullpen into early action. At some point, the numbers stop looking like a bad stretch and start looking like a clear answer.
That’s why Sunday feels like such an awkward place to hand him another turn, especially with the Dodgers waiting. Pittsburgh is scheduled to face Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Friday, Tarik Skubal on Saturday and Blake Snell on Sunday, a brutal setup against the defending World Series champions. Simply sticking with Mlodzinski because the rotation line says it’s his day would solve nothing.
The Pirates do have alternatives, even if none are perfect. They could go with a bullpen game, use an opener ahead of a bulk pitcher or try another arm in that rotation spot and see whether he can handle it for the rest of the season.
None of those options is ideal. But all of them would at least be an effort to find something workable. Keeping Mlodzinski in place would just mean running back a trial that has already delivered a pretty clear result.
Pittsburgh still hasn’t announced what it plans to do Sunday. But by listing Chandler and Jones and leaving Mlodzinski off the board, the Pirates may have already tipped their hand.
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