Don Kelly's most criticized Pirates decision may actually save their rotation

For the better part of the last month, Don Kelly’s handling of Carmen Mlodzinski has been one of the easiest Pittsburgh Pirates decisions to criticize.

Mlodzinski was technically a reliever, but he wasn’t being used like one. He required several days of recovery between appearances. He routinely worked multiple innings. Kelly sometimes deployed him in games that were already largely decided rather than saving him for the highest-leverage situation possible.

The frustration was understandable. What good is having one of your best bullpen arms if he’s unavailable more often than a traditional reliever and sometimes burning through his innings when the game barely hangs in the balance?

We might finally have an answer. Mlodzinski is returning to the Pirates’ rotation Friday after Mitch Keller suffered a season-ending shoulder injury, and suddenly the controversial way Pittsburgh handled him out of the bullpen looks far more useful than it did a month ago.

Perhaps that was part of the plan all along.

Mlodzinski has made 14 consecutive appearances out of the bullpen, but calling him a traditional reliever during that stretch would be misleading. He has worked multiple innings every single time. In his last two appearances, he threw three shutout innings apiece. His most recent outing Aug. 1 required 47 pitches.

In other words, Pittsburgh isn’t asking a one-inning setup man to suddenly become a starter in the middle of a playoff chase. Mlodzinski has remained stretched out.

He should be capable of getting somewhere around 60 pitches Friday, and the Pirates can continue building him from there without needing a lengthy Triple-A reset or several abbreviated starts merely to rebuild his workload. That matters now because Keller’s injury created an enormous hole.

Don Kelly's unconventional handling of Carmen Mlodzinski in relief made his return to the rotation more seamless

The Pirates didn’t know a month ago that Keller’s season would end in early August. But they did know rotation depth can disappear quickly, particularly during the second half of a season. Preserving Mlodzinski as something closer to a hybrid pitcher rather than converting him completely into a conventional reliever gave Pittsburgh insurance.

That doesn’t mean every Kelly decision involving Mlodzinski suddenly becomes correct in hindsight. There were still games where his usage deserved scrutiny, and Mlodzinski’s limited availability reduced his value as a bullpen weapon. But there may have been another consideration behind those long outings and lengthy recovery periods.

The Pirates might have been trying to solve two problems simultaneously: use Mlodzinski to stabilize a struggling bullpen without completely closing the door on returning him to the rotation. Now they desperately need that door open.

Pittsburgh revamped its bullpen at the trade deadline with Luke Weaver, Camilo Doval, Lake Bachar and Kirby Yates, making Mlodzinski considerably easier to remove from the relief corps. Keller’s injury created the opening on the other side.

For weeks, Kelly’s treatment of Mlodzinski seemed overly cautious and unnecessarily complicated. Now it might be the reason the Pirates can lose a starting pitcher in August and immediately replace him with someone capable of handling meaningful innings.

What once looked like needless overmanagement may now be exactly what allows the Pirates to absorb the loss of Keller without watching their rotation unravel.

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