Jones has 'confidence boost' outing as Bucs roar back in opener

CHICAGO -- Jared Jones’ return from the injured list last week represented a boost for the Pirates’ starting rotation for the final month-plus of the 2024 season. In the long run, Jones pitching down the stretch and through September could pay huge dividends for the Pirates.

“The difference between playing baseball in September, you cannot replicate it,” manager Derek Shelton said before the Pirates’ 5-3, come-from-behind win over the Cubs at Wrigley Field on Monday. “The season is so long. … Being able to finish a season is very important because it's not only a physical grind, but it's a mental grind.

“The physical part of it comes when they end the season and they realize 'Damn, how am I going to prepare for next year?' And the mental grind is the last month of the season when you're tired, you have to get up and execute.”

Jones went on the 15-day injured list on July 4 with a right lat strain and was activated on Friday. He made his second start since returning on Monday, in Pittsburgh’s series opener against Chicago, he delivered the type of performance that has come to define a strong rookie season.

Jones threw 6 1/3 innings and allowed three runs on six hits and one walk. He surrendered a home run and struck out four. The Pirates backed him with a late rally; Bryan Reynolds hit a game-tying three-run homer and Andrew McCutchen hit a go-ahead solo blast in the eighth inning.

"That was the best I've felt, realistically, since even before the injury,” Jones said. “Everything was working, and that was a pretty good day."

The plan was for Jones to pitch six innings, according to Shelton, but the right-hander was so efficient he earned the opportunity to go back out for the seventh. Jones finished the night throwing just 87 pitches (60 strikes).

The Cubs took an early 1-0 lead when Dansby Swanson hit a solo homer to the basket in left-center field off of a Jones curveball that hung in the zone. According to Statcast, the projected 370-foot blast would have been a homer in only one of MLB's 30 ballparks: Wrigley Field.

Chicago scored three times in the fifth. With one out, Swanson grounded a single up the middle and Pete Crow-Armstrong reached on a hit-by-pitch. It looked like Jones induced an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play against Miguel Amaya, but Crow-Armstrong beat shortstop Alika Williams’ throw to second baseman Nick Gonzales.

Ian Happ then followed with a two-run triple that snuck inside the first-base line.

“He essentially made one bad pitch,” Shelton said. “He made a bad pitch on the breaking ball to Dansby, and he hit it out. Then the other run he gave up, I know Happ hits a ball inside the line, but we get one of the fastest guys in baseball [Crow-Armstrong] that basically beats out a routine double play ball. You don’t see that very often.”

Jones also faced Chicago in his return from the IL on Friday. He was charged with five runs on five hits in four innings. You can understand what Monday meant to him.

“It was a big confidence boost,” Jones said. “There's really nothing more to that, just a confidence boost."

Jones has thrown 101 1/3 innings this season, still a fair amount shy of his career high as a professional. He threw 126 1/3 innings between Double-A Altoona and Triple-A Indianapolis last season.

For his part, Jones said it feels like July for him, considering the time he missed. And with his extended IL stint, the Pirates recognize the importance of him getting back on the mound to his workload.

“We need to build his volume up,” Shelton said. “We came into the year, and the amount of innings that he pitched early on, it was like ‘OK, how are we going to monitor this going forward?' [We] did not want the lat strain to be the reason that we had to monitor it. That was unfortunate. Now we have to get him built up so when we go into next year, we have a good volume of innings built up.”

So far so good. Jones delivered another strong performance for the Pirates, after a tough first performance back from the IL.

“I don’t think he’s ever going to sulk,” Shelton said. “He’s probably going to try to run through a wall before he’s going to sulk. That’s his personality. … He’s a kid who probably thinks he should throw 130 [pitches] in nine innings every time out, and you love that about him.”