Shelton prefers to go slow
Injury threat brings out his caution flag
As much as they would have liked to be full speed ahead in summer camp Wednesday, the first day MLB teams were allowed to begin team training again, the Pirates are taking it slow.
With the amount of testing needed to be done and guidelines to be followed, the Pirates had their players trickling in Wednesday. By Thursday, they expect everyone to be in Pittsburgh, and Friday will be the first day of full workouts.
Manager Derek Shelton has been champing at the bit since spring training was canceled in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and probably before that. During his weekly radio appearance on 93.7 The Fan with Post-Gazette columnists Joe Starkey and Ron Cook, however, Shelton said he understood the need for things to move slowly right now, ensuring that everything is as safe as possible before summer camp kicks off.
“I think that’s probably the biggest point, just educating our guys,” Shelton said Wednesday. “... The second part of it is just making sure our medical team is doing assessments on guys coming in. Because we’ve had
such a long layoff, we can’t ramp up right away because injuries are something that are going to be extremely important during the season and during 60 games, so there’s a lot of assessments going on and then we will slowly ramp up to more game-speed stuff.”
It might be good to get used to some abnormalities because this 60-game season will be full of them.
Those abnormalities start this week. In a usual season, Shelton might address the team all at once to start camp. With the way summer camp will work, with different groups of players working out at different times to ensure social distancing, Shelton won’t be able to do that. It’s a small change, but it’s emblematic of the larger adjustments the Pirates will have to make.
“What we’ve actually started with the groups that are here is having smaller group meetings,” Shelton said. “So the message that I would have to our group at the beginning of spring training, where everybody’s in one room and we’re having a conversation, we’re not going to be able to do that right away. So it’s the same message, it’s just the message is being delivered multiple times to different groups.”
The perk is that Shelton can go back to relative normalcy. He once again will be able to manage a baseball team and, in a few weeks, that will mean live games. That also will mean answering questions about his team.
With Starkey and Cook, Shelton was asked about the recent, 80-game suspension of right-handed reliever Edgar Santana and what that does to the Pirates.
“Well, I think any time you lose pitching depth, it definitely hurts you, and Santana had a good spring coming off what he had gone through with the Tommy John [surgery], and we were planning on him being a part of our bullpen,” Shelton said. “But just like with any other situation you run into, whether it’s a suspension, whether it’s an injury, we just have to adapt and adjust. I think we definitely have some younger guys that can step into those roles and definitely fill them.”
Shelton hesitated to say for sure who he thinks will fill Santana’s place, saying that he’ll wait to see his players in person to make any decision like that.
He gave the same sort of answer when asked about third baseman Colin Moran and whether he automatically has that position to start the season.
“I think that’s a really good question, and again, that’s going to come back to how our guys come in and what their shape is,” Shelton said. “Colin is actually swinging the bat. Colin is actually in town. I’ve been able to watch him swing the bat the last couple of days. Some of the adjustments that he and [coach] Rick [Eckstein] were able to make during this gap in spring training to the season, I’ve been very encouraged about. I think you’re going to see multiple people over at third base at times, you could see Colin at first base at times if Josh [Bell] DHs for a game or two, you could see Colin in the DH spot.”
So, perhaps, the answers aren’t all there yet, but that is to be expected.