PIRATES

It's Sunday, so it's time to hear from Ben Cherington on his weekly radio show ...

• Cherington said this week has been "a crazy week of baseball." He said they got "punched in the face against the Cardinals," but has liked the way the team has bounced back against the Reds: "The compete level Friday night and Saturday night was definitely there. What was encouraging to me over Friday and Saturday is our at-bats have been disciplined."

• Cherington said it was a tough choice to option Nick Yorke to make room for Jared Triolo's return. He said it was harder to see a lot of playing time for Yorke with the mix they have in the infield right now.

• Regarding Jared Jones' rehab start at Class A Bradenton: "The simplest thing from the first rehab outing was that obviously the velocity was there as you may have seen. I think he was up to 101. But for me, the biggest things were one, he threw all his pitches. We saw the fastball, curve, slider, changeup. He was in the strike zone for the most part. You figure, he's gonna get some strikeouts at that level if he's in the strike zone, but he's in the strike zone. And then he left the outing and then certainly the next day feeling good. So you check all those boxes. We feel good about the first outing, anticipate he'll now go to a higher level in the minor league, continue the rehab assignment."

• Cherington on Jones' role in 2026 and in the long term: "He's a starting pitcher. I mean, that's long term. He is a starting pitcher, like 100%. That's how we feel about him. We haven't gotten far enough into the rehab assignment to really get clear on exactly how we're going to manage roles as he comes back onto the team. We've got some time to do that. We've seen success with guys, who are starting caliber pitchers, performing well in different roles. We just haven't gotten far enough into that. We'll get into that more clearly as we get a little bit deeper into the rehab assignment."