As Bido pulled early again, rotation could take different shape

"Just one bad inning," a subdued Bido said postgame, via interpreter Stephen Morales. "Obviously you don’t want that to happen."

Those other two runners would come home to score later that inning as Bido watched from the bench, and the Pirates went on to lose at PNC Park on Wednesday, 6-3.

"I think with him, just cause we’ve opened with him, we’ll be aggressive with him," Derek Shelton said, explaining the quick hook.

That quick hook came after just three innings of work, in which Bido allowed four runs on three hits with one walk and three strikeouts. Needless to say, it wasn't the cleanest outing.

Wednesday was the sixth straight outing Bido was done after four innings or fewer (though one was a relief appearance on short rest against the Diamondbacks). As Shelton alluded to, his previous outing on July 22 came after the team pitched an opener first, so the team isn't going to shy away from different ways to deploy him.

It's also fair to wonder exactly how much runway he has moving forward. The team's depth problem hasn't really been solved, but there are more options now than they were when he was promoted in mid-June.

While the Pirates did trade Rich Hill before Tuesday's trade deadline, they acquired a pair of young starters: Bailey Falter from the Phillies and Jackson Wolf from the Padres. Wolf is on the 40 man roster already and made one emergency start in the majors, but is reporting to Class AA Altoona. He's on the radar, but is far from the first choice for now. While the team hasn't announced who is taking Hill's spot in the rotation, Falter is a logical choice. He's made seven major-league starts this year, and while the 26-year-old southpaw doesn't wow with stuff (sits low 90s with low spin breaking offerings), he attacks the zone and was ranked as high as the team's No. 6 prospect according to FanGraphs in 2021.

"Falter really is a guy we’ve had our eyes on for a while," Ben Cherington said Tuesday. "Left-handed pitcher, strike thrower, deceptive, pitched on a big stage, pitched with a good team, pitched in a tough pitcher’s park in Philly. PNC is a nice park for a lefty with his style. We’ve always kind of felt like he was going to be a good fit for our team and our ballpark and have asked the Phillies about him a number of times over the last couple years."

Even if the assumed plan for the short-term is to have Falter replace Hill for now and keep Wolf in reserve, the rest of the rotation is still up in the air after Mitch Keller. Johan Oviedo has already thrown 124 1/3 innings this year and is only 12 1/3 frames away from matching his high as a professional, done so in 2019. How far do they want to push a new personal high in competitive innings. The same could be asked about Quinn Priester, whose 103 1/3 innings are already a career high. 

There are a couple options, including Max Kranick who is throwing sim games as he nears a return from Tommy John surgery. In conversations with him this year, the goal has been to return to the majors this September, which seems like a possibility.

"The rehab team and pitching department down in the complex is getting a really good look at him, notably how Max is recovering and how everything is bouncing back after these outings," director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk said Wednesday. "So, after the sim games is a rehab assignment."

There are also a pair of prospects worth following in Indianapolis still: Kyle Nicolas and Jared Jones. Both started the year with Class AA Altoona and neither has excelled since their promotion (Nicolas has a 9.35 ERA and Jones a 4.72), but they're both well-regarded as prospects and can be major-leaguers. Jones has the higher ceiling and what's been described by league sources as better stuff, but Nicolas needs to be added to the roster this winter anyway to protect him from the Rule 5 draft, which seems like a strong possibility. And if Luis Ortiz could make the jump from Altoona to the majors, why couldn't they?

That leaves the two wild cards: Ortiz and Roansy Contreras.

Contreras has yet to get into games in the Florida Complex League after being demoted so he could work on his mechanics. The team has been looking for an answer for why his fastball velocity dipped so drastically this year, as he was throwing 92 mph out of the bullpen before being optioned in mid-July. There's a hope that he could start games again by the end of the season, but that is going to be based on what happens in Florida.

As for Ortiz, a 4.86 ERA with Jekyll and Hyde results could potentially be enough to send a young starter back to the minors for more seasoning, but his demotion also extends beyond just what he did on the mound, from what I have gathered. No specifics to share, but there are reasons why one of the team's top pitching prospects isn't in the majors at a time when they have openings in the rotation.

"The best outcome for all of us, including Luis, is for him to make Major League starts this year, but he’s got to earn it," Cherington said. "He’s going to work and earn it, and we believe he will do that. But there’s stuff that he’s working on to accomplish first in Triple-A and we’ll see where that goes. He’s working hard. We think he’s the right track. We’re seeing signs of progress, and if that continues, it will make the decision easier at some point to get some Major League starts, too, but we’ll take it a step at a time."

That leaves someone like Bido, a 27-year-old rookie who wasn't even invited to major-league spring training, in a unique spot where he could start, be used around as the bulk guy for bullpen guys or even be replaced depending on what happens with other pitchers in the system. All this will happen while the rotation evolves these final two months and starts to take shape for 2024.

"I’m just out there to do my job and pitch," Bido said. "That’s it. Whatever slot they want to use me, I’ll be ready."