The Pittsburgh Pirates will open their homestand against the St. Louis Cardinals at PNC Park on April 27 with left-hander Mason Montgomery set to start and rookie right-hander Wilber Dotel lined up for a bulk relief role, the club announced ahead of the series.
Montgomery will most likely get the first inning, and manager Don Kelly said Dotel will come in after Montgomery and take on the amount of innings a starter normally would. The club wants Dotel to go at least five innings against St. Louis, a clear sign they intend to use him as more than a short reliever in the night’s plan.
The matchup matters because Montgomery’s early-season success with left-handed hitters gives the Pirates a strategic bridge. Montgomery has allowed a.143 batting average to left-handed batters and recorded 10 strikeouts over 15 batters faced. He has also produced seven straight scoreless outings covering 6.2 innings, and Montgomery faced the Washington Nationals at PNC Park on April 15, the same day Carmen Mlodzinski threw six scoreless innings in a similar bulk role.
The Cardinals present a specific test up front: two of the first three hitters Montgomery will face are left-handed, with second baseman JJ Wetherholt leading off and first baseman Alec Burleson scheduled to hit third. That lineup construction helps explain why Pittsburgh will pitch Montgomery to start and hand length duties to Dotel.
For the Pirates, the decision is a bet on a pitcher with far more minor-league starting experience than big-league innings. Dotel is a rookie who has made just two MLB appearances and had less than 15 innings at Triple-A Indianapolis before his call-up. He has 84 starts in 98 minor league appearances, including 25 starts with High-A Greensboro in 2024 and 27 starts with Double-A Altoona in 2025. His last time coming out of the bullpen was in 2023.
That workload in the minors is part of why the club is comfortable asking him for length despite limited big-league experience. Dotel stands 6-foot-3 and 223 pounds, signed for $65,000 at age 18 out of the Dominican Republic, and has averaged 97.1 mph with his fastball so far, touching 100 mph. He complements the fastball with a cutter, slider and changeup — a profile the Pirates clearly hope can translate to multiple innings against a National League lineup.
The risk is obvious: Dotel’s two MLB appearances and limited Triple-A innings offer a thin sample size for a role that asks him to absorb starter-type workloads on short notice. The Pirates needed a starting pitcher outside their regular rotation and had Hunter Barco and José Urquidy stretching out as starters in Triple-A; instead, the club turned to Dotel for length in this specific matchup. The contrast between his minor-league starter history and his rookie-level big-league experience creates the friction Kelly’s plan must overcome.
What will decide whether the experiment works is simple and immediate: can Dotel deliver the five innings the Pirates want? If he does, Pittsburgh gains roster flexibility and a credible multi-inning option; if he cannot, the team will have to lean on its bullpen earlier and revisit how it fills starter needs outside the rotation. Either way, the April 27 game at PNC Park will offer the clearest look yet at whether wilber dotel’s triple-A resume and 100-mph arm can translate into reliable, starter-length innings in the majors.
