Former Pittsburgh Pirate Tyler Glasnow couldn’t get a win in his return to PNC Park. But that wasn’t his fault.
Blame his offense, and blame the other guy who started against him.
Glasnow and the Dodgers lost 1-0 to the Pirates despite the 30-year-old right-hander turning in a solid performance against his first Major League club. Glasnow racked up nine strikeouts in six innings as he allowed just five baserunners Tuesday night.
His only mistake was a home run served up to Jack Suwinski in the third inning.
Jack is back. pic.twitter.com/HKlAM0QaJC
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) June 4, 2024
Glasnow’s strikeout total is now a Major League-leading 104. But his opponent on the hill for the Pirates was just a little better.
Jared Jones threw 100 pitches through six innings and didn’t allow any runs while scattering three hits and three walks with six strikeouts.
Jared Jones welcomes the Dodgers to Pittsburgh with 1️⃣0️⃣1️⃣???? pic.twitter.com/107YfWCQ6R
— MLB (@MLB) June 4, 2024
“He did good. He’s a good pitcher. He’s got some good stuff. A really good young arm,” Glasnow said of Jones.
As for himself, Glasnow tried to downplay his return to Pittsburgh. Despite being part of the ill-fated Chris Archer trade with Tampa Bay back in 2018, Glasnow had yet to pitch in Pittsburgh as a member of the Rays or the Dodgers until Tuesday night.
“It felt like a long time,” Glasnow said. “I didn’t think too deep into it. But it was just cool to be back. Glad I felt good tonight.”
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Glasnow did point out one significant difference about his experience on the PNC Park mound as opposed to when he was on it as a Pirate, though.
“Then, I just sucked every time. Now, I feel like I’m better than I was then. Definitely a stark difference for sure,” Glasnow quipped.
To Glasnow’s point, despite all of his obvious talents, he could never put it all together here. He was 3-11 as a Pirate, with a 5.79 ERA in 56 appearances to go along with a career WHIP of 1.70. Some of that was injury. A lot of that was wild inconsistency.
But since 2019, between Tampa and L.A., Glasnow is 32-14 with a 3.03 ERA and 566 strikeouts against 125 walks.
Back to Jones, he and the bullpen went 12 for 12 against Dodgers hitters with runners in scoring position. After the game, Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts complimented Jones’ fastball action, even if at times Roberts wasn’t quite sure if Jones knew where it was going.
“He didn’t really have great command,” Roberts said of Jones. “He was missing arm-side; then he would throw it low down below, then he’d throw a slider. So it’s hard to hunt certain areas.”
“There were some misses in there. Some right at our guys. It’s kind of effectively wild. You just don’t really get comfortable in there. Certainly, (not) when a guy is throwing 100 miles an hour.”
Now the Dodgers have to deal with Paul Skenes on Wednesday, and so far batters feeling “comfortable” against him is pretty rare as well.
