It’s official. Tonight, Jared Jones takes the mound for the Pittsburgh Pirates for the first time in 20 months, returning to Major League Baseball after recovering from UCL surgery.
The 24-year-old, who made 22 starts in his rookie year, pitched to a 4.14 ERA, 1.192 WHIP, and 3.38 strikeout-to-walk ratio with a 6-8 record.
Following an arm injury suffered before the start of the regular season last year, Jones missed the entirety of the 2025 season and has spent the first months of the 2026 campaign slowly working his way back.
Now, he’s re-joining a rotation that looks a lot different. Jones, whose time in the majors predates everyone in the rotation not named Mitch Keller, will now start alongside new starters Braxton Ashcraft and Bubba Chandler. Carmen Mlodzinski, who took Jones’ spot in the rotation to open the year, has since been bumped back to the bullpen.
And as the right-hander prepares to return tonight against his former manager in Derek Shelton and the Minnesota Twins, I figured now was the best time to recap his entire rehab stint and look at some takeaways from his nearly 20 innings in the minor leagues.
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