Luis Ortiz has proven he’s here to stay in Pirates rotation

It’s hard to remember a time when we didn’t have this many good pitchers on one Pirates team.

Luis Ortiz bounced around between Minor and Major League play, appearances as a starter on the mound and in relief, but it seems now in the second half of the season that he is finding his groove as he looking strong with a good stretch of starts.

Starting off this year as a bright spot in the bullpen, Ortiz saw his first 21 appearances come in relief. Slowly but surely his relief appearances would get longer, yielding positive results, which eventually saw him get moved back into the rotation. Injuries to Bailey Falter and Jared Jones saw Ortiz get the shot that he needed to show he’s still a capable starter, and really since then he has not looked back.

Prior to his start against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night, the 25-year old Dominican native is 2-0 in his last four, with 19 strikeouts, and a 0.73 ERA. Since his final start in 2023, Luis Ortiz has thrown 5.0+ innings and allowed four or fewer hits in five consecutive starts. Such a streak is the second longest in Buccos history, though that streak ended against Arizona with five hits given up.

In his game against Arizona, he fought off tough situations, but certainly suffered from the team’s hitting not being able to generate more offense. Even still, his final line wasn’t terrible, and he definitely helped the team hang in longer than they probably deserved to. In five innings pitched he allowed three runs to come across with four strikeouts and three walks allowed. He showed early on the great mix he had going between some scorching fastballs, coupled with some mind bending off-speed pitches. However, his pitch count got high quickly, and he did back himself into some tough corners, most of which he escaped but the runs did eventually take their toll.

The Pirates lost on Friday night to open their series against the Diamondbacks, a team that they are right behind in the wild-card race. The Buccos showed in that game that they rely heavily on their pitching staff to win games, with one of the lowest team averages in all of Major League Baseball. That being said, you’d have to wonder if the Pirates do make a postseason push, what would their rotation look like?

After his string of recent success, I think Ortiz certainly fits into that group. He’s been more successful than Priester, more consistent than Perez, and is just flat out better than Falter in my opinion. Quality pitching is one of those key factors that helps to decide series down the stretch in the regular season, and certainly in the postseason as well. Between Ortiz, Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller, and hopefully Jared Jones again soon, the Buccos are in a good position to close out some close games on the strength of their rotation.

At this point in the season, it looks as though Ortiz has earned his spot back in the starting rotation, and I don’t imagine the team will be moving him from that role anytime soon. Friday night wasn’t the best showing from him, but overall the team didn’t look exceptional, and I do believe if the offense can carry some of the weight, these kind of performances from Ortiz will pay off more often than not.