Keller, Musgrove in race against time on returns
Pirates director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk said Wednesday that he is pleased with how starting pitchers Mitch Keller and Joe Musgrove have re- sponded to treatment and progressed through the re- hab process.
Keller is playing catch off flat ground and could throw off a mound as early as next week. Musgrove will throw off a mound in the next few days.
That’s good news for both, but the bad news looks like this: There are only 40 games left after Wednesday. Keller hasn’t thrown a competitive pitch since Aug. 1 because of a left oblique injury. Musgrove’s last full-speed toss was Aug. 3 thanks to right triceps and right ankle inflammation/discomfort.
If it takes two weeks to get back into game shape, that takes us to Sept. 2. And with a five-man rotation, we’re probably looking at a maximum of five starts the rest of the way.
“Joe is further along in his mound progression or return-to-mound progression than Mitch,” Tomczyk said. “The first side will be in the coming days for Joe, then we’ll see after how he responds to that. Mitch is still building up endurance on flat ground.”
It’s a tough pill to swallow for both considering that Musgrove took the ball opening day and Keller remains the Pirates’ top prospect. This was also supposed to be a year for Keller to develop and gain valuable experience. Instead, his left side has him on the side. In addition to the experience for Keller, it’s an issue for both when you think about their year-overyear innings jump for 2021.
The Pirates need both to play important roles, and it would have been tough to go from a shortened season to 162 games under normal conditions. Now, this. Obviously, the Pirates aren’t going to rush them now just to think about the future, but it’s an unfortunate byproduct of playing only 60 games.
Other updates
• Tomczyk said that Phillip Evans will need surgery for his broken jaw after all. Turns out the fracture has “become a little more displaced,” so he will have a wire put into the jaw that allows the bone to heal properly.
“The most important thing here with Phil here is: The long-term prognosis is very good,” Tomczyk said. “The doctors continue to expect a full recovery.”
• Tomczyk said that Kyle Crick, who has been on the 10-day injured list with a right lat muscle strain since July 28, threw live batting practice Tuesday and “came out of that well.” The Pirates anticipate Crick doing that again soon.
• Clay Holmes (right elbow sprain), Michael Feliz (right elbow sprain) and Nick Burdi (right elbow) were sent home after they were lost for the season.
• Yacksel Rios, who went on the 10-day IL before the game Tuesday, will stop throwing immediately because of his right shoulder inflammation,
Sticking with Polanco
Gregory Polanco began the game Wednesday hitting just .075 with 21 strikeouts in 46 plate appearances — a strikeout rate of 45.7%. While manager Derek Shelton acknowledged the need to get Polanco going, he pointed to Polanco’s average exit velocity — 94.2 mph, eighth in MLB — as one of the reasons to keep starting him in right field.
“I know the regular numbers aren’t real good, but he’s hitting the ball hard,” Shelton said. “We just have to get some of ’em to fall. We have to get him some consistent at-bats. There will be days that he has off for his body and other factors. But we have to get him going, and hopefully some of these balls will start to fall.”
One issue there could be sample size. Sure, Polanco has hit some balls hard. But, of the eight men ahead of him in this particular stat, half have had at least two times as many battedball events — or contact that has been charted.
Not clean enough
Shelton set out to have the Pirates play a cleaner brand of baseball. To this point, that hasn’t happened.
The Pirates have made baserunning blunders, including a couple Tuesday, and have a fielding percentage (.974) that’s tied for the worst in MLB.
Meanwhile, only three teams have made more than their 18 errors, and just three more teams have eclipsed their number of times caught stealing (5).