Glasnow odd man out of rotation with Taillon returning

Tyler Glasnow is the odd man out in the Pirates' starting rotation.

With Jameson Taillon set to start Monday against the Rockies — exactly five weeks after surgery for testicular cancer — Glasnow was optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis Saturday morning. The decision was made after he allowed seven runs in the 12-7 loss to the Marlins Friday.

Additionally, relief pitcher Dovydas Neverauskas was optioned to Indianapolis, and relief pitchers A.J. Schugel and Edgar Santana have been recalled from Triple-A.



Glasnow allowed 10 hits in four innings Friday night, including a pair of home runs, in his 12th start of the season and 15th in the major leagues. The loss dropped his record to 2-6 and inflated his ERA to 7.45. He allowed 12 home runs in 54 1/3 innings and had a 1.91 WHIP.

"It’s the volume of work," Clint Hurdle told reporters. "It’s the areas we haven’t been able to push through. As you look now, the WHIP number is real — it’s close to two. Throwing more strikes, more hard contact. ... There’s good stuff to pull and I think he walks away with an honest evaluation of why he was sent down, which is, at the end of the day, performance."

The plan was to allow Glasnow to learn in the major leagues, but the situation was no longer tenable with the starting rotation struggling, Jameson Taillon set to return and the emergence of Trevor Williams, who joined the rotation May 6.

He was pulled after 65 pitches against the Marlins, allowing at least two runs in the second, third and fourth innings. The Marlins hammered him for 10 hits in that span, three for extra bases. Glasnow has pitched through the fifth inning just twice this season, and seemed to direct the blame Friday at his two-seam fastball, a pitch he started throwing in spring training.

Yet, each of his pitches were elevated and lacked movement. Giancarlo Stanton hit a hanging curveball down the middle an estimated 465 feet, landing over the batter's eye in center field in the third inning.

"I just have to fix it,” Glasnow said afterward.

He'll do so in Triple-A, with Taillon starting Monday against the Rockies at PNC Park, Chad Kuhl being bumped back to Wednesday and Gerrit Cole making his scheduled start Tuesday. Unlike Glasnow, Kuhl had shown signs of progress over the past 10 days. His curveball has proven to be valuable, yet he also needed 90 pitches to get through five innings Wednesday in Baltimore.

Williams, who will start Saturday against the Marlins, has a 3.04 ERA with 12 strikeouts and four walks in his past four starts.

The Pirates are 3-1 in those games, and he’s thrown 69 percent of his pitches for strikes. More important, creating weak contact allowed him to pitch into the sixth inning in three of those four starts.

"He cares; he prepared," Hurdle said of Glasnow. "The execution part became challenging, but the preparation part was never a question. The honest self-evaluation part was never a question. I have a lot to hang onto moving forward. As I told him, I believe in him and I believe in him going down, rolling his sleeves up, going to work, getting better and finding his way back because we can use him going forward."

Glasnow will step into a Triple-A rotation that is among the best in the minor leagues. Four of the Indians' five starters rank in the top 18 in the International League in ERA, including Steven Brault, who leads the league at 2.10.

The plan is for Glasnow to work on his mechanics and execution with Indianapolis pitching coach Stan Kyles. His fastball was generating little movement and he has rarely been able to use his breaking pitches effectively. The Pirates could no longer afford to have the 23-year-old work through those issues in the major leagues.

Their bullpen is taxed — which is reflected in the additions of Santana and Schugel — and Cole is in the middle of the worst four-start stretch in his career. The Pirates' rotation has allowed the third-most hits in the major leagues and the rotation’s 4.62 ERA is 20th.

Santana, who will make his major league debut in his first appearance with the Pirates, was among the top relievers in the International League, holding a 1.93 ERA in 32 innings with a 1-1 record. He had 31 strikeouts to seven walks and had a scoreless innings streak of 21 2/3 innings.

Schugel, meanwhile, went 2-0 with a 0.73 ERA in his last eight appearances with Indianapolis.

Santana, who is 25 years old and did not start playing baseball competitively until he was 19, was used in a variety of situations in Indianapolis, including in long relief, and will likely fill that void in some capacity for a bullpen that is in flux. Tony Watson was removed as closer, and that role will be shared by Felipe Rivero and Juan Nicasio.

His arrival also speaks volumes to how highly the Pirates think of him. They removed relief pitcher Pat Light from the 40-man roster to add him, indicating he will likely stay beyond Monday, when Taillon will need to be officially reinstated from the disabled list.

Hurdle said the starting rotation needs to throw more innings to take the pressure off the bullpen. The "collateral damage" is adding up, as the Pirates are nine games under .500 for the first time since the season finale in 2011, and Glasnow is not part of the solution.

The hope is he can work his way back to Pittsburgh at some point this season, and Hurdle said he has observed signs that indicate that will happen.

"This is the first time he’s been hit like this," Hurdle said. "It wasn’t an embarrassment. It was that mentality that, 'I need to find a way to do better — not that I’m not good enough. I know I’m better than this.' I love the backbone that I was able to see."