MIAMI -- "Exciting?" Ke'Bryan Hayes would repeat my one-word question back.
"Man," he'd add, "want to know what's really exciting?"
More exciting than an elite pitching prospect, Jared Jones, generating almost triple-digit heat in striking out 10 in his big-league debut?
More exciting than the sport's premier pitching prospect, Paul Skenes, similarly and almost simultaneously slicing up batters in his Class AAA debut several states away?
More exciting than both those events happening amid the happy backdrop of the still-perfect Pirates opening up 3-0 by once again overwhelming the Marlins, 9-3, on this Saturday evening at loanDepot park?
OK, yeah, as I'd respond to Hayes, let's hear this other exciting thing.
“Jared's a bulldog. Loves to have the ball. Loves to compete with every pitch," he'd begin. "But as well as he was doing, even with some of the pitches he missed to get some of those Ks, you'd see the little bit of emotion he showed wanting to execute that pitch."
Wait, the pitch that'd get him a K? He'd be dissatisfied with some of those?
"Uh-huh."
Oh, my.
"That's what I'm talking about. He’s a guy who's gonna attack hitters, throw strikes and uses his fastball very well. He’s gonna challenge them. I learned that last year in Indy when I was rehabbing, but this year, I got to get extended looks and see him a lot in the spring. He has an electric arm, and the sky's the limit for him.”
Beyond the arm?
"Way beyond. He wants to be great."
____________________
It was, in fact, one start. But what a start for Jones, the 22-year-old flamethrower who was the 44th overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, the Pirates' first class under Ben Cherington. And really, it's not so much the standard line -- 5 2/3 innings, three runs, three hits, two walks -- but, rather, all those strikeouts built on all that swing-and-miss stuff:
• He saw 23 Miami batters and struck out 10
• He became the 31st pitcher in Major League Baseball's modern history -- 1900 and onward -- to strike out 10 or more in his big-league debut, the fourth in the Pirates' own history, joining Nick Maddox, who had 11 on Sept. 13, 1907; Dick Hall, who had 11 on July 24, 1955; and Tim Wakefield, who had 10 on July 31, 1992
• He threw 89 pitches, and 62 were strikes
• Of the 48 times the Marlins swung against Jones, 22 resulted in misses
• The 22 whiffs were the most by any pitcher making his debut since pitch-tracking began in 2008, one more than Johnny Cueto's 21 for the Reds that same year
• Of the 26 fastballs Jones threw, 11 drew whiffs
• Of his 17 sliders, 10 drew whiffs
• Got the other one with a changeup
• The fastball maxed out at 99.9 mph in the first inning, with another at 99.8 mph the same inning, averaging 97.1 mph for the day
Now, I could keep breaking this down all day analytically ...
NESTICO STATS
... or I could just show all 10 strikeouts in a half-minute clip:
Welcome to The Show, Jared Jones!
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) March 30, 2024
Pittsburgh's No. 3 prospect (MLB No. 60) becomes the 31st pitcher in AL/NL history and fourth in @Pirates franchise history (first since Tim Wakefield) to rack up 10 strikeouts in his MLB debut. pic.twitter.com/nqmR3NmHG5
One gets the picture, blurred as the view might've been for the batters involved.
"Pitcher was really good," the Marlins' Jesus Sanchez would tell Miami reporters through an interpreter. "You've gotta give a lot of credit. He was nasty today."
The view from the visitors' dugout was much the same.
“Very impressive," Derek Shelton would say. "We knew, organizationally, this kid has weapons. We saw it on display today a little bit.”
And the view from first base sounded a lot like the one from Hayes opposite the diamond.
"Impressive, but not surprising," Connor Joe would say, "The few guys that got on, I asked them, ‘How is it? How’s his stuff look?’ Everyone came back saying it was really good stuff.”
And how did Jones feel?
"It felt really good, man," he'd reply with the broadest smile I've seen from him before referring to Miami's leadoff man and defending National League batting champion Luis Arraez stepping into the box against him. "Honestly, I just wanted pitch No. 1 to be anywhere close where Henry could catch it."
Henry Davis, of course. And he'd have to reach a half-foot above the zone to catch that 97.2-mph sailer.
"All the nerves just settled in right then and there and took off," Jones would add with a laugh. “But after the first hitter and I got him out, I was like, ‘You know what? I just got a batting champ out, let’s settle in here and get to work.’ That was the whole plan from there on out.”
If that doesn't sound like much of a plan, that's because it wasn't. And seldom is.
____________________
Most pitchers will strive to stifle emotions, and not just outwardly. I had a long talk with Jones in Bradenton a few weeks ago in which he acknowledged, "I'm just going to be myself out there. You're going to see me giving everything I've got. It's the only way I know how to pitch."
He and Davis, his catcher for the better part of two years in the system, mutually accept that. As such, Davis, who'll rival anyone's high-strung personality in any setting, won't tiptoe to the mound for his visits. He'll get there, give an earful, then bolt back behind the plate. As he'd put it this spring, "The key's to just make him mad."
That was seen here, too.
I spent a minute or so with Jones in the clubhouse Friday, and he could scarcely speak a sentence of more than a couple syllables. His head was so deep into pitching study that the bill of his cap was bumping up against his iPad. I'm positive he wouldn't remember I was ever there.
Before this game, he'd walked out toward the bullpen warmup in a stare-straight-ahead realm of his own:
GETTY
After his final out of the first inning, a slider that streamed away from a lunging Bryan De La Cruz, he followed through with a spirited fist-pump.
And after his final batter, when Shelton pulled him in the sixth, he strode off the mound visibly not fearing what was to come but, instead, with his chin way up in being greeted by the hugs and high-fives from his waiting teammates.
And after the game, more from his mates:
This one's for you, Jared. 💛 pic.twitter.com/X8uBaACoDg
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 30, 2024
And then the 21 family and friends on hand:
The moment every kid dreams of. 🥹 pic.twitter.com/uYR7rPAO8J
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 30, 2024
And then the interview session:
There's nothing at all tight there, right?
Different dude.
It'll be fascinating to see how he evolves, but I've got this to share right now: The Pittsburgh pitcher with the most swings and misses in a single start since pitch-tracking began: A.J. Burnett, with 25 on Sept. 21, 2013.
____________________
It's exciting, all right.
It's one start, but it's impossible for me to conceive that anyone wouldn't find it exciting, even in the context of the Pirates being ... you know, the Pirates, that Jones and Skenes seem to set to enter this rotation as exactly the caliber of pitchers they appear to be.
Know what I'm saying?
"We should be excited," Shelton would reply when I brought this up. "But it's also one day."
Yep. And what a day. Jones did his thing here and, in an International League game that began two hours earlier in Louisville, Ky., Skenes was at 100-plus mph through three perfect innings:
🔥🔥🔥🔥
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) March 30, 2024
4 strikeouts in 2 perfect innings for @Pirates' Paul Skenes in his @indyindians debut
Fastball velos:
99.7
100.0
100.4
100.8
99.2
100.5
99.3
99.4
100.3
100.3
100.5 pic.twitter.com/wueJnD7Myd
Jones acknowledged watching some of that.
“He was punching tickets," he'd say of Skenes. "He’s good. I’m probably gonna text him and say, ‘Hey I got more punches than you today, but I obviously threw 2 2/3 more innings.' ”
Now, imagine those two added to Mitch Keller, Martin Perez, another veteran or youngster, and ... well, as I'd confess to Cherington on the way into the clubhouse, maybe that big-time No. 2 starter out of free agency -- the one for which I'd been animatedly advocating all winter -- wasn't as needed as I'd thought.
These two pitchers, Jones and Skenes, don't come across as long-shots, and that might be where this feels most heartening at the moment.
Love how Joe worded this, when I asked about the inherent excitement of this day: "Right here, that's Jared. That's him. And from everything I've learned and gotten to know about him, that’s what we’re gonna get. So yeah, that builds a lot of excitement in the clubhouse moving forward, not only because of the numbers he can put up but because of the competitiveness, the aggressiveness and his attitude and mentality on the mound. That’s what we can get behind."
• One more, and I'll be flying home.
• Thanks for reading.
