The first piggyback experiment with Jared Jones and Carmen Mlodzinski worked out nicely in Houston.
Now the question becomes, can the Pirates experiment within the experiment?
After Jones pitched five innings of shutout baseball against the Astros — a dramatic improvement from his first start of the year against the Minnesota Twins last weekend — Mlodzinski opened the sixth by giving up a home run on his second pitch to Isaac Paredes.
Isaac Paredes is now the fourth Mexican-born player to hit 100 home runs in Major League history! ???????? pic.twitter.com/xjU3jvvWa0
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) June 5, 2026
From there, though, Mlodzinski didn’t allow any more runs, and the Pirates won 5-1 as he picked up a four-inning save.
“It’s great to see Jared out there doing his thing. Putting up those zeros. We are just going to roll from here. I think we are in a good spot,” Mlodzinski said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame broadcast.
“It’s been all year, it’s not just this series. Our offense has been the spark for our team this year.”
Carmen Mlodzinski had nothing but praise for the Pirates’ offense after his second career save ????@mearshannah_ | #LetsGoBucspic.twitter.com/3gvnKId87F
— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) June 5, 2026
That was just the second save of Mlodzinski’s career, and it occurred in his first outing after his much-ballyhooed move out of the rotation and into the bullpen to make room for Jones.
“I don’t think it could’ve gone any better than the way it did,” manager Don Kelly said on SportsNet Pittsburgh after the victory. “Score some runs, get up five, and Jared and Carm nailed it.”
For Kelly, Mlodzinski, Jones and general manager Ben Cherington, things needed to go exactly the way that they did.
Jones was under scrutiny for his rocky first start against the Twins on the heels of publicly dismissing the very thought of coming out of the bullpen. Mlodzinski had been pilloried in fan and media circles for initially balking at coming out of the rotation. And Kelly and Cherington were under fire for taking Mlodzinski out of the rotation in the first place.
Kudos all around for going 1 for 1 on this test balloon for the first time now that Mlodzinski has accepted his role — and as Jones pitches his arm back into full-time MLB shape.
But as well as things went Thursday, did the hard plan of saving Mlodzinski to relieve Jones negatively impact the Wednesday night result?
Yeah. It probably did.
That is where the Mlodzinski plan may need to be tweaked.
If you get Mlodzinski on the mound up 4-3 to close out the fifth inning for a laboring Paul Skenes — or even to start the sixth — the bullpen debacle that occurred thereafter Wednesday in Houston doesn’t happen, and the Pirates likely win that game.
Either way, Jones is going five innings maximum. The remaining four need to be covered. As it turned out, over two nights, the Pirates were somehow going to need eight innings of relief.
Personally, I’d never compromise the prospect of a win today on the hunch of what will probably need to happen tomorrow.
What if Jones blew up early again Thursday? Then you would’ve burned Mlodzinski chasing a deficit early instead of closing out a lead late. I say play for the win when you know you have the lead.
In other words, if Mlodzinski is going to be in the role of bulk relief, let him play that role. Don’t have him simply be the second starter on Jones’ day.
That’s too much of a pigeonhole situation. As Jones gets back into gear, this will be less of a problem. If Skenes and Keller find their form, days around Jones will need less bullpen coverage. That was the thinking when they slotted him there in the first place.
But the Pirates have to be nimble with Mlodzinski now. They have to figure out what three or four innings per outing out of the pen means for him in terms of downtime until he throws again.
If Mlodzinski has to go three or four innings for Jones every time Jones starts — good outing or bad outing — and then he sits for four days, that’s not a very efficient use of two of the team’s more talented arms.
The Pirates are in a playoff race right now. Every game matters. This isn’t a typical six-month Pirates developmental season.
Decisions need to be made with an eye toward winning the nine innings on a given day, rather than what is simplest for the development of young arms in the future. Especially since those arms may be shut down for up to a full year in 2027, given the looming labor situation.
Let Mlodzinski help to win those nine innings on whatever day he is available to pitch. Have the rest of the bullpen try — emphasis on: “try” — to do its collective job when Jones starts if Mlodzinski isn’t available. Soon enough, Jones may not need the help we are all worrying about anyway.
Based on how he threw Thursday, that day could perhaps come quicker than we thought.