Maholm misses final start due to knee discomfort

Paul Maholm missed his final start of the season on Friday due to left-knee irritation.

Maholm said he had some minor discomfort in his knee during his last start but that it “wasn’t a big deal.”

“Everything is good,” Maholm said. “It’s not a setback. We felt there wasn’t a need to push it. Would I like to have started? Yeah. But you have to look at the risk and the reward. It just got to where it’s not 100 percent and there is no need to push it for one more.”

Although he has had trouble with his knee last season, Maholm will not require additional surgery and is hopeful with an altered workout it will lessen the discomfort for next season.

“I’m going to make sure that I stay a lot more consistent doing the smaller maintenance stuff,” Maholm said. “I did it, but I need to make sure that’s one of my main goals in between starts. I need to make sure I get a couple days of rehab for it to keep it where it needs to be.”

Maholm finishes the season with a 9-15 with a 5.10 ERA. No pirates’ pitcher was able to get 10 wins this season –for the second time in three years.

“We dwell on the negatives so much, but I’ve gone back and looked and I had 25 really good starts and I had seven where I should have been pitching in [Class] A-ball at that point,” he said. “You have bad starts, but mine were extremely bad. Seventy-five percent of my starts I was averaging almost seven innings. That’s what I expect, though I need to make sure those seven don’t creep back in and become more consistent.”