The 22-year-old rookie is drawing lots of buzz in just a short time in the bigs.
Night in and night out, fans across Major League Baseball continue to fall in love with Pittsburgh Pirates’ right-handed pitcher Jared Jones.
In just five starts spanning 29 innings, Jones is 2-2 with a 2.79 ERA and averaging seven or more strikeouts per game, becoming just the fourth pitcher to average that amount in five games, and just the second Pirates pitcher to accomplish the feat. Others on the list include Jose DeLeon, who did it with the Pirates in 1983; Stephen Strasburg with the Washington Nationals in 2010; and Masahiro Tanaka with the New York Yankees in 2014.
Rookie Jared Jones is off to a hot start for the @Pirates. ☠️ pic.twitter.com/teJVYEPQfH
— MLB (@MLB) April 23, 2024
Those strikeouts and formidable numbers wouldn’t be possible without a few things: velocity, control and confidence in his pitches.
Per Statcast, Jones’ four-seam fastball averages 97 miles per hour and he uses it nearly 50 percent of the time. Despite the heavy usage, opponents are hitting just .182 against it. His slider, on the other hand, is used roughly 40 percent of the time (39.9 to be exact) and he’s getting opponents to whiff 51 percent of the time.
Not to mention it has 33.6 inches of drop and 3.8 inches of break on it. Brice Turang of the Brewers found that out firsthand Monday night.
Jared Jones just KILLED a man. pic.twitter.com/rcdh9KbbSK
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 22, 2024
His confidence is also something that Pirates fans haven’t seen in quite some time. Take Monday’s game against Milwaukee, for example. He was cruising most of the game but ran into a bases loaded jam in the sixth.
One would normally expect a rookie pitcher with little-to-no stress in their first four outings to get nervous and inevitably lose the battle, but Jones remained calm and forced Blake Perkins to roll one back to the mound, killing the rally.
Jones even earned the kudos of manager Derek Shelton after the game:
“[Jones] didn’t have his sharpest command at times, and he was able to battle through it. It’s a testament to the kid, I mean, the sixth inning, bases loaded, and to get Perkins out there… That’s a growth moment … He legitimately had four games without a lot of stress, and there’s no bigger stress than bases loaded. It’s a quality hitter and you see the effectiveness of the slider. It’s just understating it, but he got a really good, quality hitter to take an awkward swing.”
From a fan’s perspective, the expectations for Jones were high, given his strong spring and experience in the minor leagues, but Jones has beaten every expectation with flying colors and ran with every challenge he’s faced so far.
The best part is that there are still other notable arms in the Pirates’ minor league system on the verge of coming up and making an immediate impact, like Paul Skenes and Bubba Chandler.
Is it still early? Yes, but considering Jones has been consistent in the short time he’s been in MLB, he is poised for a bright future.