Jared Jones was doing something you almost never see from a guy 8 starts into a comeback season: working through a lineup like it owed him money. Through 6 innings against the Braves, Jones had retired all 18 batters he faced, 18 up and 18 down, with 8 strikeouts mixed in. No hits, no walks, no baserunners, period.
Barstool Baseball tracked the perfect game bid as Jones cruised through the Braves lineup.
Here's the catch, and it's the whole story: Jones threw that perfecto on just 77 pitches. That number matters because it's basically the ceiling he's been operating under all year. He underwent internal brace surgery on his throwing elbow back in May of last year with a 10-to-12 month recovery window, and since returning to Pittsburgh's rotation he's been capped at 75-to-85 pitches a start, never once cracking 81. So when he hit 77 with a perfect game intact, the Pirates still pulled him. Roster health beat history, and the bullpen inherited a clean sheet it couldn't hold.
The relief corps didn't even make it two innings before the wheels came off, and the way it happened stung extra. Joey Bart, who was Pittsburgh's catcher until the Pirates shipped him to Atlanta on June 18, stepped up in the 8th and turned on a slider for a 2-run shot that put the Braves ahead for good. Distance: 422 feet. Exit velo: 106.3 mph. Practically a message.
The moment the Braves flipped the game: Bart's 2-run homer landing off the reliever who followed Jones.
Barstool's account leaned into it with the "revenge game" tag, and it wasn't hyperbole this time, it was literal. Bart had already flirted with a homer earlier in the game on a ball to left that would've cleared the fence in 29 other parks before Bryan Reynolds ran it down at the wall. The version that finally left the yard came against the team that non-tendered him out the door barely 3 weeks earlier, in the building he used to call home.
This is the tension every Pirates fan is going to be chewing on for a while: Jones looks like the ace this rotation was promised before the elbow blew out, but the front office is managing him like a rental car, and rightly so given what a setback would cost this season and next. Pittsburgh reportedly wants to keep him under 180 innings total in 2026, which means starts like this, brilliant, unfinished, capped by design, are going to be the norm rather than the exception all summer.
The Braves walked away with a shutout win, Bart got the moment every traded player fantasizes about, and the Pirates got a reminder that pitching depth and roster math don't care how good a start looks on paper. Jones will presumably get another crack at a complete gem down the line, but for now the box score reads perfect through 6, no decision, and a bullpen that turned a signature outing into a loss.