BRADENTON, Fla. \u2013 As one of the more cerebral pitchers on the Pittsburgh Pirates, Carmen Mlodzinski is aware of the irony involved in his desire to be a starting pitcher versus his success as a reliever.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old right-hander has the seven-pitch arsenal of a starter \u2014 with more offerings in the works \u2014 but career numbers that show he\u2019s been better out of the bullpen.<\/p>\n
So, Mlodzinski reflected on reversing a trend by inducing irony to his offseason. He set sights on opening the season in the starting rotation by zeroing in on how he pitched in relief over the final three months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way that I finished the season gave me confidence,\u201d said Mlodzinski, who posted a 1.89 ERA over 47 2\/3 innings in his final 20 appearances (three starts). \u201cAny time you can finish on a high note, that\u2019s a goal we all set. You want to finish well, and I was able to do that last year. It gave me essentially a blueprint for the offseason. I want to be able to start how I finished.\u201d<\/p>\n
The key was relying on the pitches that worked well for him late last season, balancing a ball-to-strike sinker with his four-seamer and concentrating on his bread-and-butter splitter and curveball.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the pitches you have confidence with,\u201d Mlodzinski said, \u201cso everything gets built around them.\u201d<\/p>\n
What Mlodzinski realized is that his greatest struggles through his first three seasons in the major leagues came in his first month with the Pirates. As a rookie in June 2023, he had a respectable 3.24 ERA and 1.08 WHIP with a .226 batting average against in seven relief appearances. The following May, however, Mlodzinski had a 9.39 ERA and 2.08 WHIP with a .333 batting average and .925 OPS.<\/p>\n
As a starter last March and April, he was 1-3 with a 6.58 ERA, a .330 batting average against and .858 OPS in 26 innings over six starts. What Mlodzinski found is that he struggled the second and third times through the order, so he set out to identify what was at the root of his problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes time to figure that out,\u201d Mlodzinski said. \u201cThere\u2019s very few guys that are going to come in and just straight up dominate. It\u2019s been a blessing to watch Paul (Skenes) do it, but there just isn\u2019t many of those guys. Definitely want the exposure to that. That\u2019s something I\u2019ve had conversations with (Pirates pitching coaches about) is that I like failing, in a sense. Every time I\u2019ve failed with this organization, I always turn it into a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Skenes, the 2025 National League Cy Young winner, set to anchor a staff featuring Mitch Keller and Bubba Chandler, Mlodzinski will contend with Braxton Ashcraft and Jose Urquidy for one of the final two spots in the Opening Day starting rotation.<\/p>\n
Mlodzinski opened spring training on a strong note by striking out three of the first four batters he faced in two scoreless innings against the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday in his first Grapefruit League start. He drew eight whiffs on 14 swings and five called strikes on his 32 pitches, giving up one single and no walks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not expecting to struggle the first month,\u201d Mlodzinski said. \u201cI want to dominate, but you have to be realistic. This is a pattern that\u2019s happened three or four seasons now, so we\u2019re putting a lot of emphasis into, \u2018How do we clean up that first month?\u2019 It seems like the ship sails pretty cleanly after that, once I make those adjustments. I\u2019m pretty aware of that spring drain of that and want to make sure that adjustments happen more quickly this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
After his slow start last year, Mlodzinski was demoted to Triple-A Indianapolis. Upon being called back up, he returned to the bullpen and went 3-2 with a 1.93 ERA and 1.02 WHIP in his final 18 appearances.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarmen did a fantastic job last year,\u201d Pirates manager Don Kelly said. \u201cGot off to a tough start starting, went down, made some adjustments, came back up and dominated. He did extremely well in the bullpen before starting again later in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
What Kelly wants to see is whether Mlodzinski can maintain the velocity and movement on his pitches throughout the game, an indicator that he will still be effective in later innings so Kelly can trust him the second and third times through the opposing order. Mlodzinski has made it clear that as much as he wants to be a starter, he\u2019ll do whatever is needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want the challenge. I want to be able to figure it out,\u201d Mlodzinski said. \u201cThat\u2019s the ultimate versatility, the ultimate role: to say that I can be a really good starter or be really good out of the bullpen. It\u2019s like getting that last piece of the puzzle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ultimate goal is to be a big league starter. That\u2019s the pinnacle, to be a major league starting pitcher. That\u2019s the hardest job of any pitcher, outside of some serious closers. That is the ultimate goal, so I\u2019m always going to push for that. \u2026 I always communicate with the organization that I do want to win. That gives me more satisfaction than my own personal desire, but I do think what\u2019s going to help us win is me pushing to get to that because that\u2019s going to be the best version of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRADENTON, Fla. \u2013 As one of the more cerebral pitchers on the Pittsburgh Pirates, Carmen Mlodzinski is aware…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-489555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}