BRADENTON, Fla. – The Pirates have suffered minor injuries to all three members of the Dream Outfield™ in the last two days, leading to Andrew McCutchen missing yesterday’s game, Gregory Polanco missing tonight’s game, and Starling Marte being removed in the third inning tonight. Fortunately, in all three cases, the Pirates were just being cautious.
“You’ve got to get guys ready for the season,” Clint Hurdle said after tonight’s game. “I don’t anticipate anybody that we’ve unplugged is going to be unplugged for a significant amount of time, just based on the information I’ve gotten tonight.”
McCutchen was back in the lineup one day after being scratched. Polanco was scratched tonight, although after the game he said that he was just a little sore, re-aggravating an injury he suffered in Bradenton a few years ago. The same thing happened once last year, and Polanco didn’t miss any time. He said that he would be playing if it was the regular season.
“If I had to play, I’d play,” Polanco said. “They said just take care of this today, and tomorrow you’ll play.”
Polanco is currently in the lineup tomorrow, although as we’ve seen the last two days, that can always change.
Marte was removed tonight in the third inning due to right quad tightness. He will be evaluated and treated, and is currently day-to-day. Hurdle said that the injury was related to a situation in the first inning when Marte got his cleats caught in the dirt running out of the batter’s box.
“He lost his footing coming out of the box, and then his leg tightened up on him,” Hurdle said. “Along the lines of Polanco or McCutchen or anybody, if there’s any area of concern, we’ll get him out, see what he can do tomorrow, and see where we go from there.”
Liriano Struggles With Fastball Location
Francisco Liriano made his final start of the spring tonight, and it wasn’t the best outing. He was scheduled for six innings and 100 pitches, but ended up throwing 100 pitches over 4.2 innings. Liriano didn’t issue any walks, but struggled with his fastball location, which is something he said he’s struggled with in his last few starts. He did say his breaking ball and changeup are fine, so the fastball is the final thing he needs to get down before his Opening Day start.
There are no more starts for him this spring, but Liriano will have two bullpen sessions where he can work on some things.
“I’m just going to be working on my fastball, and making my delivery better,” Liriano said of the work he’ll do this week.
Hurdle thinks that Liriano will be “fresh and ready” by Opening Day, and both he and Liriano said that this is a normal stage for him to be in at the end of camp, based on his history.
“We’ve seen it from time to time,” Hurdle said. “He needs to auto-correct. There will be two opportunities to throw on the side. This is a guy with experience. He demands more of himself. He’ll figure this out.”
Other Notes
**As I wrote last night, the Pirates have an interesting decision to make this week with Cory Luebke, who can opt-out of his deal on Tuesday if they don’t add him to the roster. The lefty has been hitting 94 MPH with his fastball, and 87 MPH with his slider, showing that his old stuff is back after three years of injuries. Today, he threw a shutout inning against the Twins, rebounding well from his last outing, where he gave up two runs in 1.2 innings.
“The last game was more mental mistakes than anything,” Luebke said. “The stuff was fine, but I threw two pitches at the wrong time. That’s part of Spring Training as well. It’s just as much to get back my mind into baseball shape as it is to get my body back.”
Luebke let the leadoff guy get on base, then made some pitches to get out of the inning. He said that the key to today’s outing was having good location on his fastball.
If the Pirates do add Luebke to their roster, he will be a reliever, either in Indianapolis or Pittsburgh. That’s to limit the innings this year, with the chance that his role could expand later in the season.
“What we’ve talked about is just start in the bullpen, and just see how the arm and everything reacts fine,” Luebke said. “There’s no set blueprint for missing three years, and coming back and what needs to be done after what I’ve dealt with. Ideally, I’d like to start in the pen, and if there is a chance later in the year and things are going well, that I could help out in the rotation.”
As for the decision this week, Luebke isn’t focused on it, and isn’t sure what way the Pirates might be leaning.
“I haven’t heard anything either way,” Luebke said. “With this all coming out the last few days, they’ve had 3-4 outings to eval me, and I’ve got one or two more before then. We’ll see what happens.”
**David Freese hit his first home run of the spring tonight, getting the only run against Jake Odorizzi. He will go to Pirate City tomorrow, getting 6-7 at-bats in the minor league games. Juan Nicasio will now make his start at Pirate City, going six innings and 100 pitches. Trevor Williams will get the start in the major league game tomorrow night against the Orioles. Basically, Nicasio and Williams are switching locations for their start.
The reason for this? If Nicasio struggles in an inning at Pirate City, the inning can be ended and he can return for the next inning. If he struggles in a normal Spring Training game, he might not get all of his work in. The fact that the Pirates are guaranteeing him six innings of work tomorrow is a good sign that he’s still in the mix for a rotation spot.
**The Pirates had a lot of nice fielding plays tonight from their Opening Day infield. Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer turned a nice 4-6-3 double play. David Freese made a charging play to get a runner at first. Harrison also ranged far to his left, making a play on a ball that looked like it was going to sneak through the hole past John Jaso. He then made the throw to first base, with his momentum still taking him to right field, and Liriano was there to get the throw and step on the bag. The entire play was difficult for all parties, but Harrison and Liriano made it look easy. Hurdle chalked that up to practicing those types of plays.
“We put a lot of effort in those plays, so it’s kind of rewarding when we see it in a game,” Hurdle said.
