Pirates’ Carmen Mlodzinski’s Turnaround: ‘Utilizing Our Strengths’

Pirates’ right-hander Carmen Mlodzinski put together his best start of the season on Sunday, May 11, pitching a season high 5.2 innings. He didn’t allow a run, also a season-best mark, helping the Pirates to a 4-3 walk-off victory over the Atlanta Braves.

Pittsburgh moved Mlodzinski from the bullpen to the starting rotation in the offseason, and the switch hasn’t gone well to start the season: he entered play with a 6.16 ERA, although he’s started to settle in during recent starts.

After the win, Mlodzinski said part of his success stemmed from focusing on his own strengths, rather than the weaknesses of the batters he faced. 

“Just making sure we’re utilizing our strengths. I think I’ve fallen into a pattern a little bit this year of pitching to weaknesses and kind of losing what I do as a pitcher. So just kind of reaffirm that ‘your strengths are good. You’ve been in the big leagues a few years now, don’t waiver away from what got you here and what’s kept you,’” Mlodzinski said.

“Just making sure I’m getting my fastball up and driving that through [the] zone, making sure the strike percentage with fastballs I’m throwing is up. It hadn’t been a great number… I think that’s been hurting me quite a bit.”

It Starts With the Fastball

Mlodzinski used his fastball 62.6 percent of the time, landing 54 of 83 total pitches for strikes.

Pirates’ catcher Joey Bart said that Mlodzinski built on the offering, opening the way for him to use his secondary offerings with greater success. Bart described how he;s worked with Mlodzinski, bolstering his confidence and encouraging him to keep things simple.

“It seems like he was attacking. His fastball was good, getting by those guys, opening up his offspeed a little bit. The message for him was just to attack, attack, attack, don’t make this harder than it is.’ Throwing the ball across the plate, good things will happen,” Bart said.

“Just try to pump some confidence in him, let him know like ‘hey man, you’re really, really good, you’ve got good stuff, and if you keep working you’re gonna be headed in the right direction.”

Pirates’ manager Don Kelly credited Mlodzinski for his tenacity, continuing to succeed a third time through the Braves’ order: far from a given for practiced starters, much less recently converted relievers.

“He’s had ups and downs, you see how it’s gone the first two times through the order, and then he has hit a little wall there, but today you didn’t see that,” Mlodzinski said. “He continued to push, continued to grind through, and I think that going from relieving to starting and just the way that it takes some time, so we’ll just see how he continues to progress. Today was great.”