Before Monday night’s home game vs the San Francisco Giants, the Pittsburgh Pirates officially ended the rehab assignment of right-handed starter Johan Oviedo and reinstated him from the 60-Day IL.
Oviedo pitched 177.2 innings for the Pirates in 2023, putting up a 4.31 ERA, 1.373 WHIP, and 1.90 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The righty was expected to remain a key part of Pittsburgh’s rotation, but an arm injury eventually required Tommy John surgery, taking him out of service for all of 2024.
The Cuban finally got back on the mound at the tail end of June, kicking off a rehab assignment that saw him make stops in the Florida Complex League, Low-A Bradenton, Double-A Altoona, and Triple-A Indianapolis.
After a lengthy recovery process and a month-long stint working his way back through the farm system, Oviedo’s work finally culminated in Monday night’s appearance, marking Oviedo’s first game back in Major League Baseball since September 27th, 2023.
There were some things to like, there were some things to dislike, but it probably didn’t go quite as Oviedo and the Pirates had planned.
Oviedo only lasted one inning in his start, surrendering two earned runs and facing eight total batters in the first inning.
Heliot Ramos welcomed him to the game with a leadoff single, and control proved an issue for Oviedo, who walked the next two batters to load the bases with no one out.
He did seem to settle down a little, and earned his first strikeout of the day when he retired Matt Chapman for the first out of the inning.
But he did not get out of the frame unscathed.
Dominic Smith blooped one into center field, moving everyone up 90 feet and putting the Giants on the board.
The trouble didn’t stop there. With the bases still loaded, Oviedo walked Casey Schmitt, with only one pitch getting close to the strike zone. That free pass walked in a run, giving the Giants a 2-0 lead and putting some concern over whether Oviedo might even make it out of the inning.
However, Oviedo locked it down after that. He came back to strike out Jung Hoo Lee and Patrick Bailey to end the inning, limiting San Francisco to only a pair to open the game.
Yohan Ramirez took over for Oviedo in the second in what became an unconventional bullpen game for the Pirates. Ramirez and Kyle Nicolas both pitched 2.2 innings, Ryan Borucki (who was also returning from injury) went 1.2, and Dauri Moreta served as the ninth inning arm.
Having Oviedo only last one inning probably wasn’t the ideal scenario the Pirates had in mind for his first start back, especially considering the Pirates designated Genesis Cabrera, a lefty bullpen arm, for assignment to make room for Oviedo.
However, after issuing three free passes in the first frame, his pitch count was already at 43, and it was clear that the Pirates wanted to ease him back into the grind a little bit. Oviedo’s highest pitch count during his rehab assignment was 63, set back on July 24th in Altoona when he was pitching in Double-A for the Curve.
While he probably wasn’t anticipated to go five innings, like he did in each of his last two rehab starts, only securing three outs did put a damper on his return.
But despite some of the flaws in his first inning back at PNC Park, we shouldn’t be overly concerned…yet.
A rehab assignment can only do so much to prepare a player heading back to the major leagues, and for a player like Oviedo, he will certainly need time to get back into the grind of facing the best batting that baseball has to offer.
After all, it’s been nearly two full years since Oviedo faced MLB competition in a game. He did not even get spring training reps in 2024. There was bound to be a few hiccups in putting him back in that environment. But that’s exactly why you do it.
With the 2025 campaign now all about evaluating talent for next year, getting Oviedo MLB reps will go a long way in ensuring he can still be counted on as a piece of the team’s pitching staff in 2026.
Oviedo’s résumé says he can be, but it’s important to get him time to ramp back up to facing MLB competition again. He will have nearly two months to find his groove again, get as many reps as possible, and build up some momentum and confidence for next season.
He got his first inning in. It’s a start. Nothing more, nothing less. We’ll need a lot more to go off of before we can make a better judgement on what his future looks like here.
Now, if the next two, three, four appearances back in a Pirates uniform see him continue to struggle, then we can have a bigger conversation.
Fifth Avenue Sports 
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