Jameson Taillon To Skip Next AAA Start

Despite being healthy, Jameson Taillon will skip his next scheduled start for AAA Indianapolis.

Pittsburgh Pirate fans are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Jameson Taillon in Pittsburgh this summer. The prized right-handed pitching prospect has absolutely dominated AAA this season, and when you combine that with the Pirates starting pitching struggles fans are salivating at the mouth to see Taillon in a Pirate uniform.

Jameson Taillon has made eight starts at AAA this season and has pitched 49 1/3 innings. In those 49 1/3 innings pitched Taillon has just a 1.82 ERA and a 1.93 FIP, all while averaging 9.30 K/9 and just 0.91 BB/9. Furthermore, Taillon has allowed just one home run and has a sparkling 0.81 WHIP.

Despite being healthy, which is always a concern with Taillon, Pirate General Manager Neal Huntington announced yesterday that Jameson Taillon is going to skip his next turn in the Indianapolis rotation. The Pirates are trying to watch his innings this season, as Taillon had not pitched in professional game since the fall of 2013 prior to April due to Tommy John Surgery and a hernia injury. And if the Pirates are going to watch Taillon’s innings, then they are going to want to have as many innings left as possible when he joins the Pirates rotation in a few weeks. 

“The preference is to have a pitcher pitch deeper into the game and skip a start here or there and Taillon has been able to pitch deep into games fairly consistently for Indy to date,” Huntington told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette yesterday. Jameson Taillon has pitched at least six innings in seven of his eight starts this season, including having done that in six straight starts. Jameson Taillon has also pitched seven innings in three separate starts this season.

It is very good to see Jameson Taillon going deep into games like this, especially since entering the season the thing he needed to work on most was logging innings and building back up his arm strength. Taillon’s stuff, especially his plus curveball, have been Major League ready for awhile now and he has just been derailed by one injury after another. Taillon need to get his body used to pitching deep into games, and so far this year at AAA he has done just that.

Even though the Pittsburgh Pirates have not said this, another reason I believe they are skipping Jameson Taillon’s next start is to line him up to join the Pirate rotation in the near future. After Sunday’s rain out Juan Nicasio, the pitcher Taillon is most likely going to replace in the rotation, will pitch again on Saturday against the Texas Rangers. This puts Nicasio on track to also start on Sunday June 12th against the St. Louis Cardinals.

The one and only thing keeping Jameson Taillon at AAA right now is Major League Baseball’s ridiculous Super Two rule. The Super Two threshold is typically around June 10th. Due to this, I expect Jameson Taillon to replace Juan Nicasio in the rotation the day of Nicasio’s first start after June 10th which is June 12th. In my opinion, Jameson Taillon will make his Major League debut on Sunday June 12th against the St. Louis Cardinals at PNC Park.

Even though the Pittsburgh Pirates say they are skipping Jameson Taillon’s next AAA start to watch his innings, and I do 100 percent believe this, I also believe they are doing it in preparation to line up his starts to be ready for his Major League debut. As I said above, I believe we will see Taillon join the Pirate rotation on June 12th. The Pirates, in my opinion, want Taillon to be ready to take the ball against the Cardinals at PNC Park on that Sunday evening.