PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates have looked for reliable bullpen arms and right-handed pitcher Carmen Mlodzinski displayed exactly what they need this season.

Mlodzinski earned a four-inning save for the Pirates in the 5-1 win over the Houston Astros in the series finale at Daikin Park on June 5, playing a big role in a massive road series win.

He allowed just one run and four hits, while posting three strikeouts, shutting down a strong Astros offense for an important win.

Mlodzinski has a new role with the Pirates, but it’s one they need more performances like this one to help out an area of weakness on their pitching staff.

How Mlodzinski Shut Down the Astros

It wasn’t a great start for Mlodzinski, who gave up a solo home run to Astros third baseman Isaac Paredes to lead off the bottom of the sixth inning.

Mlodzinski threw just his second pitch, a 94.6 mph four-seam fastball that was in the top part of the strike zone, which Paredes sent 101.3 mph off the bat and 356 feet into the left field seats.

The Pirates pitcher then got out of the inning quickly, with two ground outs and a fly out to end it.

Mlodzinski faced some adversity in the bottom of the seventh inning, giving up back-to-back singles with one out and faced Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez, who was 7-for-11 and drove in five RBI prior to this at-bat.

He managed to get Alvarez out on a sinker at the top of the zone, that Mlodzinski noted postgame as, “unintentional”, and then got a ground out to strand both runners.

Mlodzinski got a 1-2-3 eighth inning and then after giving up a single in the ninth inning, he got a double play to end the game on a backdoor slider.

it was an outing that Mlodzinski relied less on striking batters out and more on inducing weak contact and relying on his defense to get the job done.

He allowed just five hard hits on 12 batted ball events and saw some nice defensive plays made, including a diving catch from left fielder Jake Mangum and a good stop from third baseman Nick Gonzales and then the pick from first baseman Spencer Horwitz for a big out.

“Yeah it was fun,” Mlodzinski said postgame to DK Pittsburgh Sports. “Not ideal second pitch in. I just felt like trusting my stuff to go right after guys. We had a five-run lead, so the thought was, ‘Let’s be efficient.’ Kind of had an idea going in that I might be able to finish this one, so efficiency was definitely in the back of my head and no walks and the defense made some plays behind me. Just pitching to the game, in a sense.”

Mlodzinski Filling New Role Admirably for Pirates

It wasn’t an easy week prior to this game for Mlodzinski, who lost his spot in the starting rotation after two months, following the return of Jared Jones from inury.

Jones took Mlodzinski’s role and the Pirates placed Mlodzinski on the restricted list for the 9-3 win over the Minnesota Twins in the series finale at PNC Park on May 31.

Mlodzinski came back off the restricted list the following day and eventually resumed his role in the bullpen, where he followed Jones in this game.

Jones had thrown five scoreless innings in his second start back and Mlodzinski came through with a solid outing for himself.

This is a big moment for the Pirates, who now have Jones improving and able to take on a bigger workload each time he comes out, while Mlodzinski is an effective reliever that can fill that bulk role after Jones.

Pittsburgh managed to give the seven other bullpen arms a rest, crucially important as they take on the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park, a weekend road series against the team with the best record in baseball at 42-21.

The Pirates bullpen had just blown a 9-5 lead in the eighth inning the game prior, in a 11-9 loss to the Astros on June 3, which marked their 13th blown save of the season.

Pirates manager Don Kelly now has one of his best arms back in his bullpen and will want to see more outings like this one from Mlodzinski as the season continues, who will help the Pirates maintain leads and give them a chance to make comebacks as well.

“We’re gonna be smart with it,” Kelly said postgame to SportsNet Pittsburgh. “He’s extremely important to us, with the starts he’s made, coming out of the ‘pen, filling four.

“We’re going to smart about the usage with him and it keeps him stretched out. It’s not to say we might not see some shorter, but the ideal length is probably for him to get up there in pitches and to do exactly what he did tonight.”

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