For Now, Pirates Hoping Internal Improvement Remedies Bullpen Woes
PITTSBURGH – There’s a lot of good with the Pittsburgh Pirates right now.
The offense is clicking. The difference between last year’s production and this year’s is night and day. The starting rotation, led by reigning Cy Young Paul Skenes, has largely been good, and a reinforcement is coming with Jared Jones expected back relatively soon.
An area in which the Pirates are lacking is one that was a concern heading into the season – the bullpen.
The woes continued in the Pirates’ 11-9 loss in 10 innings to the Philadelphia Phillies at PNC Park on Friday night. Pittsburgh squandered a five-run lead, and the bullpen allowed seven runs (five earned) in 3.1 innings.
“It’s a tough loss,” manager Don Kelly said. “Any loss is tough, especially when you have a lead like that.”
Mason Montgomery relieved starter Braxton Ashcraft and surrendered a two-run home run on the first pitch he threw to the red-hot Kyle Schwarber in the seventh. He rebounded with a scoreless eighth.
Gregory Soto, who has been the team’s most reliable reliever this year, had a rare bad night and blew the save after allowing the Phillies to tie the game with three runs in the ninth.
“He has been really good this year for us. It was a tough inning,” Kelly said of Soto. “Just looked like at times, lost the plate with a couple walks. But he’s been really good for us.”
Dennis Santana allowed three runs to cross the plate in the extra frame without recording an out. Brandan Bidois, in his second-career appearance, had the best showing of anyone out of the ‘pen by stranding a pair of runners and getting the final three outs of the 10th.
Heading into Saturday’s game against the Phillies, the team’s bullpen ERA of 4.23 ranks 19th in baseball. While a couple guys have overall been good — particularly the trio of southpaws (Soto, Montgomery, Evan Sisk) — the same cant be said about the others.
“The left-hand side of the bullpen has been pretty consistent and the right-hand side hasn’t been as consistent, particularly the last two or three weeks,” general manager Ben Cherington said on Thursday.
As Cherington alluded to, the Pirates have received shaky performances from several right-handed options in the ‘pen. Santana hasn’t been nearly as dominant and has gone seven straight appearances without a strikeout. Isaac Mattson has had a couple bad outings of late. Justin Lawrence’s results haven’t matched his stuff. Yohan Ramírez is plagued by command issues at times. The eighth spot in the bullpen has been a revolving door.
Several of those names have had success before, like Santana, who had been a revelation since joining the Pirates in the middle of the 2024 season, and Mattson, who burst onto the scene last year.
The Pirates are counting on them, and the others, to return to form.
“I believe the guys in that group are capable of just performing more consistently and better than we’ve seen the last two or three weeks, and there’s no shortage of effort or accountability,” said Cherington. “They’re working on things.”
In past years, the Pirates might have been more inclined to let guys try and work out of rough patches. But this year, the expectation is to win. At least for now, any improvement will have to come from the guys currently in-house, given that teams are often hesitant to make notable trades this early in the season.
“I think that what we see typically with bullpens that improve inside a season it seems like it’s always three things coming together,” Cherington explained. “It’s guys who are on the team now improving or getting back to what they’re capable of doing. Believe that some of that is going to happen.
“No. 2 is, other pitchers in the organization maybe that aren’t in the bullpen right now emerging as good options as we get into the season. Believe that can happen also. Believe we have guys that are capable of that. Then the third thing is external and of course we’ll keep an eye on that.”
In the meantime, the Pirates will hope their starting rotation continues to produce quality outings and the offense stays hot until the bullpen shows improvement or when teams are more willing to make trades. When that time comes, the Pirates must be ready to strike. Frankly, it was surprising to see another bullpen arm wasn’t added during the offseason.
Cherington understands that if the Pirates want to be true contenders, the bullpen needs to be better, whether that comes through internal improvement or external additions.
“We know that to be the team we want to be we’ve got to get more consistent performance out of the bullpen,” he said.
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