MLB.com.<\/a><\/p>\nIn the weeks that followed, Mlodzinski was used rather unconventionally by Kelly out of the bullpen, throwing between two and four innings per game in a variety of situations. But after spending July settling into his new relief role, Mlodzinski was given another chance to slide into Pittsburgh\u2019s rotation and prove himself as a viable starting arm Friday in the wake of Mitch Keller\u2019s season-ending injury. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had an idea that I would be taking on at least a fair chunk of innings, three or four innings. They told me that three days ago or so in Milwaukee, and then seeing how that series turned out, they confirmed with me yesterday that I\u2019d be taking the ball today,\u201d Mlodzinski said.<\/p>\n
But despite facing one of baseball\u2019s bottomfeeders in the New York Mets, Mlodzinski failed to make much of a case for himself to be a consistent starter going forward. In his first start since late May, Mlodzinski struggled right off the hop and never found his footing in what ultimately turned into a 6-4 loss for the Bucs. Only lasting three innings before being yanked, Mlodzinski stepped off the mound with a rough final line of 7 H, 5 ER, 1 BB and 1 K. <\/p>\n
While the Mets entered the matchup with a lowly 25-41 record versus National League opponents, their batters looked right at home as soon as they stepped up to the dish. Three of the first four Mets Mlodzinski faced roped a hit off of him, which quickly helped New York jump ahead 1-0 before Pittsburgh had even gotten a chance to bat.<\/p>\n
For a moment, Mlodzinski returned to his May form during the second inning. Using a combination of four-seamers, sinkers and sweepers among other pitches, Mlodzinski forced Brett Baty, Jorge Polanco and Luis Torrens into shoddy contact to send them down in order and keep the deficit at 1-0. <\/p>\n
\u201cReally not too much,\u201d Mlodzinski said of the difficulty of suddenly switching back to starter from reliever. \u201cIn the role I was in previously, the management did a good job of making sure I wasn\u2019t overthrowing in a sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
But after silencing the Mets\u2019 bats in the second, they were loud as could be in the third.<\/p>\n
Coming off a nearly 40-minute long rain delay, Mlodzinski endured one of his worst frames of the campaign. A.J. Ewing, Carson Benge and Jared Young each mashed singles past the Pirates\u2019 right-hander before Marcus Semien cleared the bases with a three-run homer. Just like that, it was 5-0 New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re more just trying to stay physically ready,\u201d Mlodzinski said of dealing with the rain delay. \u201cIt\u2019s obviously a long wait between innings, but their pitcher had to do it, and those guys had to go hit. Last time I checked, hitting in the big leagues is definitely harder than pitching. They still had to go out and play, so there\u2019s no excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Mlodzinski didn\u2019t do enough to solidify his spot in the rotation from here on out, that may not really matter at the end of the day. The Pirates are more desperate than ever to stack up wins at this point in the season, meaning that almost anything is on the table when it comes to who starts on the mound. <\/p>\n
Still, no matter what role Mlodzinski is placed in, he\u2019s willing to do whatever he can to help his team make a push for the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s gonna be day-by-day,\u201d Mlodzinski said regarding when his next start may be. \u201cIf I know something else, I\u2019ll share it, but I think right now with the position we are in, we\u2019re gonna try to win every ball game. If it takes being a little bit creative or doing things a little bit unconventional, I think everybody\u2019s gonna support that to try and make a push here,\u201d Mlodzinski said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) \u2013 Following the Pirates\u2019 7-2 loss to the Cubs on May 28th, Carmen Mlodzinski…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":988138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[298681,1266,1822,1305,1886,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-988137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-carmen-mlodzinski","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-new-york-mets","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117057792983662396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/988138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}