The Pirates changed the game before first pitch on Sunday, announcing Mason Montgomery as their starter-opener around 10:30 a.m. ET for a meeting with the Braves. That move replaced the expected Bryce Elder against Bubba Chandler preview and shifted the shape of a game billed as a possible shootout between two top-four offenses.
The change matters because it landed on game day, after the matchup had already been framed around Elder and Chandler. With Montgomery now set to open, the pitching script no longer matches the one fans woke up expecting, and the focus turns to how Pittsburgh plans to use its arms against an Atlanta lineup that has been scoring at a pace few teams can match.
This is also part of a bigger Braves thread that has tracked Atlanta’s rise to 23 games over.500, a new high-water mark and the club’s best mark since the end of the 2023 season, when it finished 46 games over.500. That backdrop is what gave the original pitching preview its pull: the Braves were carrying one of the league’s most dangerous offenses into a game that already looked built for runs.
The friction is obvious. The preview that had people looking for Bubba Chandler never lasted to first pitch, but the source does not explain why the Pirates moved Montgomery into the opener role. That leaves the most important unanswered part of the day sitting right beside the lineup card: whether Pittsburgh made the switch for matchup reasons, workload reasons or something else entirely.
For now, the only certainty is that Montgomery was the man named to start or open the game, and the rest of the evening will be judged against that decision. If the game turns into the shootout it was projected to be, the Pirates will be asked why they changed course. If it doesn’t, the move will look like the first and most important run they scored before the first inning even began.
