Pirates GM Gives Details on Carmen Mlodzinski Move
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PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates made one of the more stunning roster moves of the season, concerning right-handed pitcher Carmen Mlodzinski.
The Pirates placed Mlodzinski on the restricted list prior to the series finale against the Minnesota Twins at PNC Park on May 31, with right-handed relief pitcher Cam Sanders coming up from Triple-A Indianapolis as a replacement.
Mlodzinski going on the restricted list wasn't a good sign for the Pirates, who had just taken him out of the starting rotation and demoted him to the bullpen, while placed Jared Jones in the rotation, following his activation off the 60-day injured list
Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said that Mlodzinski didn't feel ready to pitch in this game. Cherington also said the conversations between the two parties are good, but that they had to make a move to ensure they had a full pitching staff.
“Probably sometime starting yesterday, last night, felt that there was at least a chance that we were going to have to do something to make sure that the team was going to be protected and that’s what happened today,” Cherington said.
Cherington Talks Tough Decision For Mlodzinski
Mlodzinski was in the starting rotation for the first two months of the season, with nine starts in 11 appearances, before the decision to put Jones back in after more than 600 days between both starts.
Cherington knows how hard of a decision it was for Mlodzinski, who wants and believes he can be a starting pitcher full-time, something the Pirates have faith in him doing so.
Even with all of this, Cherington believes that Mlodzinski will pitch for the Pirates again and likely this road trip.
He also noted that Mlodzinski didn't request a trade and that if he does pitch for the Pirates again, then the issue is resolved.
“Going into that conversation, the decision was clear to us, but we also understood it would likely be a challenging conversation," Cherington. "We likely understood how strongly Carmen desires to start, how important that is to him and we believe he can be that.
"We believe he can be a starting pitcher and he’ll be a starting pitcher in the future also, but we made that decision, had the conversation with Carmen, which would knew would be challenging and in the days since then,
"I think we’ve had very consistent communication with Carmen, even right up to this morning and I believe we’ve made a lot of progress with him, what his role is going to be and how we can work with him in that role to help the team win.
“Confident that we’re going to see him pitch again for this team very soon, but he wasn’t ready to do that today and going into the weekend we understood and communicated with Carmen that at some point this weekend, we were going to need him to be ready or we were going to have to replace him on the team, in fairness to the team. So that’s what happened to him.”
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Dominic writes for Pittsburgh Pirates On SI, Pittsburgh Panthers Pn SI and also, Pittsburgh Steelers On SI. A Pittsburgh native, Dominic grew up watching Pittsburgh Sports and wrote for The Pitt News as an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, covering Pitt Athletics. He would write for Pittsburgh Sports Now after college and has years of experience covering sports across Pittsburgh.