PITTSBURGH — Friday’s game featured plenty of what the Pirates have seen this season: an inability to generate offense. The hope for the rest of the season and into 2023 should be focused more on the brief glimpses they saw against the Blue Jays at PNC Park.
Making his first start since the Pirates acquired him from the St. Louis Cardinals as part of the Jose Quintana deal, Johan Oviedo looked really good at times during a 4-0 loss. He also wasn’t terribly efficient with his pitches and lasted only a third of the game.
As manager Derek Shelton said earlier, Oviedo isn’t fully stretched out, nor is the back-to-the-drawing-board tack they’ve taken with him complete. There have been mechanical tweaks and adjustments to his pitch usage, the right-hander widening his mix to include a curveball and change-up.
