Pirates grooming OF Shuck to also be a pitcher

The Pirates on Saturday experimented with an “opener,” having Montana DuRapau pitch the first two innings of their 7-2 victory against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.

It seemingly worked, too, as DuRapau struck out four in two clean innings, and the Pirates might tinker with it more in the weeks ahead.

It’s also not the only pitchingrelated thing with which they’re tinkering. In Class AAA, the Pirates are taking outfielder JB Shuck and beginning to use him as a pitcher as well, a move designed to address their bullpen needs and also help Shuck add value to a Major League Baseball roster.

“He’s been throwing some bullpen sessions in Indianapolis and will be ready to get in a game likely in the next couple of

weeks,” Pirates director of player development Larry Broadway wrote in an email Saturday to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “As you can see with the current health of our [Major League] club right now, the more pitchers you can have available the better.

“If one can legitimately do both, it’s like having a 26th man on the roster, which any manager would want.”

It won’t be Shuck’s first time pitching in a high-level environment. In college at Ohio State, Shuck split time between first base and pitcher and punched up a 3.87 earned-run average in 223 innings.

He threw a scoreless inning earlier this season — April 22 against Arizona — before the Pirates sent Shuck down to Class AAA Indianapolis. Shuck also threw an inning in 2016 while he was with the Chicago White Sox.

The position-playerpitching thing mirrors a trend that has been happening around baseball. In 2018, position players pitched 48 times, the most and more than double the amount the previous season (23).

Rule changes that will take effect in 2020 address two-way players, where clubs soon will have to distinguish between pitchers and position players. Only pitchers can pitch unless one of the following three things happens:

• The game goes into extra innings.

• A team is winning or losing by six or more runs.

• The player has earned “two-way” designation.

To earn “two-way” status, a player must pitch at least 20 Major League innings and play at least 20 Major League games as a position player or designated hitter, with at least three plate appearances in each game in either the current or previous MLB season.

Once two-way status is earned, it remains for that season and the next one. The benefit is that the player’s team does not have to use one of its pitching roster spots on him, so Shuck could pitch in — literally — when the Pirates bullpen gets worn down, like now.

Shohei Ohtani of the Angels is MLB’s most prominent two-way player, slashing .285/.361/.564 in 367 plate appearances while making 10 starts on the mound a season ago, although Ohtani won’t pitch this season after having Tommy John surgery in October 2018.

Shuck, a 31-year-old lefty, is a lifetime .243/.296/.314 hitter in 1,289 major league plate appearances. He was slashing .213/.339/.255 before the Pirates sent him to the minors.

“We are looking to not leave any stone unturned with player development that can help our major league club and help a player’s career,” Broadway wrote. “JB threw over 200 innings in college at Ohio State, so this isn’t entirely new for him. He actually had to take the mound at PNC Park earlier this season and looked very comfortable, throwing strikes and showing some arm strength.”