Kevin Gorman’s Take 5: Pirates’ first days at camp were ‘dirty’, with mash chats and rash

07/06/2020 Health, Sports


The Pittsburgh Pirates opened their second training camp (aka The Deuce) on Friday at PNC Park, but closed it to the media in an effort to follow a late Allegheny County order to limit meetings to 25 people. .

We somehow saw more fireworks than baseball this holiday weekend, even though baseball returned and the fireworks were canceled.

Go figure.

That didn’t stop us from interviewing Pirates manager Derek Shelton and the players every day through Zoom video conferencing calls, speaking on topics ranging from players who tested positive for covid-19 to Joe Musgrove’s hope of be Opening Day opener (Pirates open July 24 in St. Louis) to Josh Bell talking about racial and social injustices to Derek Holland sharing his fear of having a “butt rash” by following health protocols and MLB security carrying his own rosin bag in his back pocket while pitching.

A compilation of what we heard but couldn’t see:

1. Walk in the park: The Pirates signed the final three members of their 2020 draft class on Thursday, when they locked up three right-handed pitchers: South Carolina first-round draft pick Carmen Mlodzinski, second-round Jared Jones of La Mirada (California) High School and the third assailant Nick García of Division III of Chapman University.

Shelton had a chance to meet the newest pirates when they signed their contracts at PNC Park, sharing an excitement that he and his family experienced after their introductory press conference in November.

“One of the best things for me is walking to the field at PNC the last day I was in this (interview) room, going out to the field and seeing the stadium,” Shelton said. “The ability of these kids to see it with their families and see the Clemente Bridge and see how beautiful the horizon is, it’s extremely impressive.”

Shelton noted that he has a photo in his office restored of the expression on the faces of his three children when they walked through the tunnel to first see the view of the city skyline from the shelter of the house.

“Looking at those draft picks and seeing their faces, and being able to see their moms and dads looking at that, I’m excited about that group,” Shelton said. “As we have spoken, the vital element of our organization will be development. When you have a draft and you get guys you want, it’s an exciting day. ”

2. Distance anchors: With Jameson Taillon and Chris Archer out for the season as they recover from surgery, it’s Joe Musgrove’s move to take charge of the initial rotation.

Shelton said Musgrove “looked good” shooting 75 pitches on Friday. The step Musgrove was most excited about is his expanded tone repertoire. Musgrove said he spent downtime crafting his two-seam fastball on the extension side and can now count on throwing six pitches, with the possibility of another. He added a one-seat game that he calls a “sink back” to left-handers, a pitch he has accidentally thrown sometimes with surprisingly good results that reduced hard contact and pitch angle numbers.

The challenge, Musgrove said, is to keep all his pitches sharp.

“They come in waves. Sometimes you trust two of the six, in some games you have all six; that’s just the icing on the cake, ”said Musgrove. “Everything related to that (comeback relauncher) is quality for me. It is just execution. I really locked myself into that during this downtime. I don’t know if you would call it another release, but for me it feels like any other release I release. It has action on a certain side of the plate that none of my other pitches has. So it looks like I created this seventh release, almost. “

Pirates catcher Jacob Stallings called Musgrove’s newest release a “two-door two-seater.” Stallings noted that last season the right-hander’s slide and corner went primarily to his side of the glove, attacking left-handers and far from right-handers, and made it easier for hitters “to locate him as the year progressed.”

“If you can get the two-seater to go over to the side of the arm and sink like when it’s on, it’s really good,” Stallings said. “That changes the batter’s eye level a lot more. If you can get that two-seater going, let’s say you’re leaning forward to a left-hander and you can do it consistently, then you’ll have oscillations and glitches with the slider and curved balls receding more than last year. It’s just one other thing you can add so you can change the batter’s eye level so they can’t place him on the plate. ”

3. Do not sleep in stalls: When Stallings doesn’t care about being at the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis and catching covid-19, the pirate team tries to build rapport with launchers like Musgrove by offering constructive criticism.

That’s where their friendship comes in.

“I think you can only do that when you have a relationship,” Stallings said. “There were times last year when I went to Joe. I think the biggest one was last year, his night game numbers were much better than his day game numbers. “

Until then, Musgrove was 8-9 with a 4.02 ERA and 1.15 WHIP in 23 night outs last season. The hitters reduced .237 / .291 / .404 against Musgrove, who averaged 8.4 strikeouts for every nine innings and 3.72 strikeouts on foot. However, in the daytime games, Musgrove was 3-3 with a 5.70 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP, allowing hitters to reduce .299 / .332 / .525 and average 8.0 strikeouts for every nine and 5.43 strikeouts to foot.

What Stallings noticed is that Musgrove followed the same routine of pitching day, day, or night.

“So I went up to him one day and thought, ‘Hey, one of the things that changed my career was realizing that I can’t do the same thing for day games, in terms of preparing my body, like night games.’ “Stallings said, sharing that he wakes up much earlier so that the games of the day fit his body.” That is just one example of a conversation we would have, and I think he would appreciate it. And I think that builds trust. I think he saw improved performance during the day games as the season progressed. So I love Joe. I love racing him. I hope I can catch him a lot as the years go by. “

4. Coffee shots: Shelton said pitchers are ahead of hitters, unsurprisingly, but that didn’t stop Bell from speaking Saturday about seeing Gregory Polanco practice hitting.

Bell called it “the most impressive work day I’ve seen Polanco since last year,” and he complains about his home runs “to all fields, definitely home runs on the river.”

Bell also endorsed the idea of ​​Polanco hitting third or fifth, saying he was “excited to hit in front of or behind him.” There will be many runs to score. ”

The big question is Polanco’s left arm, as he missed most of last season after undergoing shoulder surgery. Bell said Polanco made shots from right field to second, third and home “and that was the best thing I’ve seen his arm since surgery.”

Bell estimated that Polanco was throwing “definitely over 90 mph,” and said that if he can hit the ball, his throws “will be right on target.”

I guess nobody on this team wants to be the DH.

5. Keeping it Kuhl: As complementary as Stallings was to the pitchers he caught over the weekend, he was the one he faced in live batting practice that got his best response.

“Chad Kuhl,” said Stallings. “His things were dirty.”

Kuhl missed the 2019 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, so the Pirates took him slowly in spring training. The additional downtime has certainly helped Kuhl’s confidence, not to mention a so-called “brute” Stallings.

Stallings said Kuhl went from being “tentative” to making him look silly.

“Every man is different after returning from surgery, and it was tentative. I wasn’t afraid to let him go, I was just making my way to him, ”Stallings said. “I think he is much more comfortable with where his arm is now and where his material is and how his body feels. The other day it made my first at-bat look so bad that … he threw me a first-launch fastball my second at-bat, and I just swung, because I didn’t want to face his slider or his curved ball. That’s how unpleasant the other day was.

Kevin Gorman is a writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Kevin by email at [email protected] or by Twitter.

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