Pirates’ September award sweep makes one offseason need impossible to ignore

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ best month of the 2026 season came too late to salvage their playoff aspirations, but it produced a fitting pair of individual honors.

Jared Jones was named the National League Pitcher of the Month for September, while Mason Montgomery earned NL Reliever of the Month honors. Pittsburgh finished September 15-9, its best month of the season, and Jones and Montgomery were two enormous reasons why.

It should also make the Pirates’ biggest offseason responsibility even more obvious. They have enough pitching to win. Now they need to make sure the offense is good enough — and deep enough — to take advantage of it.

Jones was dominant down the stretch. In five September starts, the right-hander struck out an NL-best 40 batters across 29 innings while walking only four and posting a 0.59 WHIP. He didn't allow a run in four of those five outings and surrendered more than one hit just twice.

It was an emphatic finish to an encouraging comeback season after Jones missed all of 2025 following elbow surgery. He finished 2026 with a 5-6 record, 3.72 ERA and 123 strikeouts against 31 walks across 101 2/3 innings, holding opposing hitters to a .209 batting average while posting a 1.08 WHIP.

Montgomery's emergence was just as significant. The left-hander finished the season 6-4 with a 2.88 ERA, 18 saves, 105 strikeouts and a 1.03 WHIP across 68 2/3 innings. From July 27 through Sept. 25, he authored a remarkable streak of 24 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings with 37 strikeouts against seven walks.

From July 1 forward, Montgomery led all MLB relievers with 1.8 fWAR and posted a 1.39 FIP, the second-best mark among relievers with at least 20 innings during that stretch. His scoreless streak was also the longest by a Pirates pitcher since Bill Landrum threw 31 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in 1989.

Elite pitching staff gives Pirates another reason there are no excuses not to contend in 2027

And Jones and Montgomery aren't operating in isolation.

Paul Skenes still struck out 200 batters over 174 1/3 innings despite what amounted to a down year by his lofty standards. Braxton Ashcraft went 14-6 with a 3.65 ERA and 173 strikeouts in 165 1/3 innings. Bubba Chandler made 30 starts. The bullpen, meanwhile, finished the second half with an MLB-best 5.2 fWAR while lowering its ERA from 4.48 before the All-Star break to 3.52 afterward.

There is plenty of pitching here. That's why the Pirates can't enter another offseason acting as though marginal offensive improvement will be enough.

To be clear, Pittsburgh's offense took a massive step forward in 2026. The Pirates scored 767 runs, sixth-most in MLB and a 184-run improvement from 2025 — the largest year-over-year jump in baseball. Their 186 home runs also established a new franchise record.

But the season also exposed how fragile that production could become. Pirates hitters struck out 1,505 times, one shy of the franchise record. They went just 18-33 in games started by opposing left-handers. And their most dangerous power hitter, Brandon Lowe, is about to become a free agent after hitting .260/.331/.493 with 35 home runs and 96 RBI.

So the offseason challenge isn't merely preserving what Pittsburgh had. It's making the lineup more resilient.

Retaining Lowe would help. So would adding another legitimate middle-of-the-order bat, preferably one capable of punishing left-handed pitching. What the Pirates cannot afford is losing Lowe, replacing him internally or with a bargain-bin alternative and assuming better health will solve everything else.

Jones and Montgomery provided a reminder in September of just how much pitching talent Pittsburgh has accumulated. Skenes, Jones, Ashcraft and Chandler give the Pirates the foundation of a potentially formidable rotation, while Montgomery suddenly looks like a legitimate late-inning anchor.

That's the expensive part of roster construction for most teams. The Pirates already have it. Their September award sweep should therefore be more than a nice offseason footnote. It should increase the urgency for Ben Cherington to surround that pitching with enough offense to make 2027 different.

Because if Jones is pitching like an ace and Montgomery is shutting games down at the back end, the Pirates shouldn't be spending next October talking about another promising foundation. They should be using it.

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