The Pittsburgh Pirates have a pitching road map for 2026 which they believe will hold up against the best hitters in the game.
Paul Skenes, dean of the Pirates’ pitching staff and last season’s National League Cy Young Award winner, gets the call as the club’s starter for Opening Day on Thursday in New York. The season’s first game for both the Pirates and New York Mets will air live on NBC and streaming simultaneously on Peacock at 1:15 p.m. ET.
Over on the West Coast, the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers begin their title defense at home at 5:30 p.m. PT at Dodger Stadium against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Dodgers have won back-to-back World Series championships, and their pitching squad is plentiful and proficient, from starters to bullpen specialists. However, for all the notoriety that Ohtani, Glasnow, Snell, and Sasaki bring to Los Angeles’ rotation, there’s a crew in Pittsburgh lining up behind Skenes that just may catch prognosticators by surprise in the coming season.
The Pirates have meticulously designed their 13-member pitching staff for the start of the season. Pirates’ general manager Ben Cherington was part of the group that assembled the roster’s hurlers.
“We’re trying to protect starters who at this point in the season aren’t fully built up to the volume they will get to, as we get further into the season,” Cherington told The Epoch Times on Monday in Bradenton, Florida. “We feel good about how we’re starting.”
It appears that the Pirates plan to transition some of their pitchers who are starting out the season as relief specialists to starters further down the schedule. The starting five, as of Opening Day, according to Pirates manager Don Kelly, is Skenes, followed by Mitch Keller, Carmen Mlodzinski, Braxton Ashcraft, and Bubba Chandler.
Aside from Keller’s seven seasons of MLB service, all with Pittsburgh, and Skenes and Mlodzinski each with two years with the club, the other two starters made their MLB debut last season.
Now, this isn’t hinting that the Pirates pitching leaders in 2026 will transform into what the Atlanta Braves had in the 1990s in Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz, Hall of Famers all. However, Skenes and company have the talent to win and the years ahead of them to dominate.
“There’s a lot that goes into it,” Pirates’ skipper Don Kelly explained of the designing of his pitching staff on Monday to The Epoch Times prior to his club’s final Grapefruit League game at LECOM Park. “We have a lot of options this season. With Carmen, Ashcraft, and Chandler, I felt like going in that order gives us the best chance with the matchups that we have early in the season. I’m excited about all three (Mlodzinski, Ashcraft, and Chandler), and what they bring behind Paul and Mitch.”
Once the Pirates’ young arms build up their pitch count so they can go as deep into the game as possible, relievers Hunter Barco and Jose Urquidy should gradually find work in the starting rotation. Kelly is high on Barco’s future. The rookie left-handed thrower is experiencing his first Opening Day on Thursday.
“Hunter is throwing the ball real well. He worked hard in the offseason and totally earned the opportunity.”
Although Dennis Santana received the bulk of game-closing opportunities last season, and is expected to get a lot of innings in the ninth in 2026, Kelly hints at others possibly getting to close games as well. Free-agent Gregory Soto, signed by Pittsburgh this past December, has extensive experience in the closer role. Isaac Mattson also answered the call late in games last season, much to Kelly’s satisfaction. Pirates’ pitchers appear to be in interchangeable roles, as the club begins a three-game series at Citi Field in Queens, N.Y.
Beyond Skenes’s recognition, beginning in 2024 when he won the National League Rookie of the Year Award, the current crop of Pirates’ pitching borders on anonymity. New Pirates pitching coach Bill Murphy has a track record of building success among young arms. During his four seasons overseeing the Houston Astros’ major league pitchers, it was during the 2022 World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies that his staff excelled. In 13 2022 postseason games, Astros’ pitchers maintained an overall 2.29 ERA. Houston’s bullpen threw a combined 0.83 ERA in the postseason.
Given Pittsburgh’s aggressiveness this off-season in obtaining—in Marcell Ozuna, Ryan O'Hearn, and Brandon Lowe—hitters known to slug home runs, Cherington and Kelly have purposely balanced out their offense with their promising pitchers to give the club an opportunity to improve on its 71–91 NL Central Division record in 2025.
Though it hasn’t qualified for postseason play since 2015, the winds of change, however subtle, seem to hover over a revamped and rejuvenated, young Pirates club. As with all successful MLB seasons, pitching is the most critical ingredient. Pittsburgh’s pitching at the start of the 2026 season is bountiful.
