Jared Jones was given no easy task when he took the mound Tuesday night at PNC Park.
He was set to start in Pittsburgh’s series opener against the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers, who featured a Murder’s Row of talent at the plate. Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Will Smith, and Freedie Freeman represented just some of the names that Jones would have to stare down.
Jones, meanwhile, was suffering the first real skid of his major league career. The rookie righty was still garnering a lot of media attention for his performances, and in particular his ability to reach 100 miles per hour in his pitches.
However, his last four stars were a very different story than the first seven that helped him make a name for himself.
Jones had opened the season with a 2.63 ERA in his first seven games. Through those 41.0 innings pitched, Jones had racked up 52 strikeouts (for an average of 7.4 per game) to just 5 walks. 72% of his pitches went for strikes.
Opponents were batting .184 against him with an OPS of .588, and while Jones had allowed 7 home runs, they were never super damaging to him.
His last four games told a different story, though. In those 22.1 innings pitched he had an ERA of 5.24, with opponents slamming him for a .278 batting average and .827 OPS. His strike percentage fell to 68% and he allowed a home run in all four of those contests.
In particular, Jones was coming off a dreadful day in Detroit, where in the first game of Pittsburgh’s doubleheader with the Tigers he got lit up for 7 runs (5 earned) in just 4.1 innings in the Pirates’ 8-0 loss.
A regression from his dominant first month was expected, but when it did come it was rather sharp. Concerns began to arise around Jones and his abilities, however justified they were.
But after the worst game of his very young major league career, he came back with one of his best against a Dodgers team that came into PNC Park with an NL West-leading 38-23 record.
Jones went 6.0 scoreless innings, striking out 6 batters and gave the Dodgers very little to work with. LA only registered 3 hits against Jones, and even when the pitcher got into a bit of a jam, he worked his way out of it.
He narrowly outperformed his Dodger counterpart in Tyler Glasnow. The former Pirates pitcher went 6.0 innings and only allowed a single run, coming off the bat of the recently recalled Jack Suwinski.
Jones’ first K came against baseball’s biggest star, striking out Shohei Ohtani in his first at bat at PNC Park.
Ohtani came into the day leading the Dodgers with a .322 batting average, but he struck out twice and hit into a double play against Jared Jones. His only hit of the night came in the eighth inning off Aroldis Chapman, who did also keep the Dodgers off the scoreboard.
But Jones was tremendous all night long. He had great success painting the strike zone, like on this pitch against Gavin Lux.
However, his very last pitch may have been his best one. On his 100th pitch, facing Jason Heyward (who he walked twice), Jones went upstairs at 99 miles per hour to get the swinging strikeout. Heyward couldn’t believe it.
Jones struggled a little bit with control on the mound today; only 60 of his pitches went for strikes and his 3 walks on the day matched a season high for him.
But unlike what we’ve seen from Jones in some of his recent outings, he didn’t let the gaffes get away from him. He didn’t look fazed at all today, and even when runners got in scoring position and LA could get dangerous, Jones remained confident.
I think that is the best thing we saw from him today. Despite the eight 100+ miles per hour pitches, despite the strikeouts, despite the shutout of a potent Dodgers offense, he looked completely confident.
For a young kid who suffered his first truly awful in Detroit, no one could really blame him if that loss had rattled him at all. But to see him come out today and dominate the way that he did is such a great sign for Jones and his talent.
Jones earned his fourth win of the season to improve to 4-5. His ERA falls to 3.25 and his WHIP falls to 1.01 on the year.
At PNC Park, his ERA now stands at an incredible 1.95, and all 6 of his starts at home have been quality starts.
Oh, and he’s 1-0 since changing his walk out song to “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield.
(Featured photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
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