Meet Hometown Pitcher Who Fell In Love With Baseball In Pittsburgh

Dylan Mathiesen moved to Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, when he was three years old, about 10 miles from PNC Park. It’s where he learned to play baseball, and where he continued to play until he went to college at Liberty University.

“I played baseball with the same group of kids from the age of like seven to eight until we were 14,” Mathiesen said. “We were a really tight group. It made me fall in love with baseball.”

After his career at Montour High School, Mathiesen went on to pitch at California University of Pennsylvania and then transferred to Liberty. On Monday, the Pittsburgh Pirates selected him with their 13th-round pick.

A lifelong Pirates fan, Mathiesen said that his mom would take him to the PNC Park every Sunday as a kid. He knew there was a chance that Pittsburgh would select him, but as the draft went on, he started to get impatient.

“My advisor said that [the Pirates] really liked me, so I always knew in the back of my head that it was pretty possible,” Mathiesen said. “The 13th round comes around, I haven’t had a call yet, and I’m expecting a call. The Pirates were up, and I looked down and was like, ‘wait, I just got drafted by the Pirates.'”

Mathiesen was at a draft party with his family and friends, and technology issues got in the way of the phone call, so everyone found out at the same time.

“It was honestly better that way,” he said.

The righty uses a fastball, sweeper, cutter and changeup. He’s most confident in the former two pitches, using the fastball for strikes and the sweeper to put hitters away, and wants to incorporate the changeup more. As a pitcher, he feels it’s important for him to constantly try new things so he’s able to adjust if he loses the feel for a pitch.

Mathiesen is on the shorter side for a pitcher at five-foot-ten, which gives his fastball a flat attack angle, helping the pitch play up. Despite his size, the velocity gets up to the mid-90s. The sweeper has shown huge horizontal movement and induced plenty of whiffs. Mathiesen struck out 84 hitters in 65 2/3 innings in his senior season.

Pirates fans will have to wait a bit to see him pitch, though. He underwent Tommy John Surgery two weeks ago. He intends to sign on Thursday and hopes to pitch late in 2026. The Pittsburgh area native has a long road ahead, but hopes to be pitching in front of his family and friends one day.

“A lot of people like the hometown story here,” Mathiesen said. “It’s really cool for me, hopefully I get to be around my family in a couple of years.”

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