Pirates to promote Tyler Glasnow

Buster Olney reports that the Pirates will promote Tyler Glasnow to start Thursday.

It remains to be seen how he Bucs' rotation will shake out to make room for Glasnow. The Bucs sent Jon Niese to Pittsburgh last night so that a doctor could look at his left knee, but Olney indicates that Niese will start Saturday. Chad Kuhl is currently officially listed as tomorrow's starter. The Pirates placed Jameson Taillon on the DL Monday with right shoulder fatigue.

Glasnow has dominating stuff, so nothing he might do tomorrow would really surprise me, including some ridiculous 12-strikeout performance. As I've written before, though, I have concerns about whether he can be successful in the big leagues right now. Glasnow's last start was a strong eight-strikeout, one-walk performance against Toledo, but prior to that he'd walked 20 batters in four starts. He only allowed two earned runs over that period, but I'm still concerned that his difficulties finding the strike zone will catch up with him in the big leagues. But perhaps the Pirates see his last start as evidence that he's turned a corner. Glasnow is an elite prospect, so it's exciting that he's being promoted, but we'll see how it turns out.