ST. LOUIS – Four players sat at a table together inside the clubhouse, showing a very familiar, but much different scene.
Adam Frazier, Tyler Glasnow, Chad Kuhl, and Jameson Taillon were all seated at a table inside the visitor’s clubhouse at Busch Stadium prior to Thursday’s game against St. Louis. The four players began the season with Triple-A Indianapolis. But one after the other has been promoted and now they sat together a few hours prior to Glasnow’s anticipated major league debut.
Glasnow is the fifth starting pitcher that has made his major league debut this season after opening the season in Indianapolis. He joins Kuhl, Taillon, Steven Brault, and Wilfredo Boscan.
“We had a pretty strong bond,” Kuhl said. “We knew we were going to have a really good team and that it was going to happen at some point for some of us, if not for all of us. We just tried to take care of business in Indy. That’s when we really got close — when we didn’t really worry about getting called up. We just worried about cheering for each other and being good in Indy.”
Kuhl and Taillon both remain with the Pirates and can offer advice on how to handle the emotions of making a major league debut. The simple message: keep things ordinary.
“Don’t treat it like this really big game,” Kuhl said. “It’s just another game and try to make it as normal as possible. It’s tough because you want to get out there and there are going to be emotions, there will be a lot of family in the stands.”
Hello Again
Pirates manager Clint Hurdle was jokingly asked if Indianapolis manager Dean Treanor was still accepting his phone calls after consistently promoting players from the Triple-A team.
“Dean is accepting the calls and we’re having some laughs along the way,” Hurdle said. “We did send [Gerrit] Cole back. But that’s one-fifth of a rotation. For three innings.”
Hurdle took a moment to praise the efforts of Indianapolis’ coaching staff of Treanor, pitching coach Stan Kyles, and hitting coach Butch Wynegar. The injuries that have necessitated so many promotions, but Hurdle refuses to dwell on the negative.
“I don’t do bad news, I just don’t do it,” Hurdle said. “It’s opportunity, it’s a different look, it’s a different angle and a different way to go about it. We’ve talked about this long and hard in here. People don’t care. The game doesn’t care — find somebody else to play and somebody else to pitch. That’s the purpose of having a farm system, and being aggressive in building these men not just collectively on the mound with their skill set physically, but with their mental toughness.”
What To Do With Taillon?
The Pirates had every intention of limiting the innings of Jameson Taillon this season — but how they were going to do so was in some debate.
Hurdle said there were two options: sit him completely, or have him start but on a limited inning-pitch count. In the end, they went with shutting him down completely for a period of time.
“We were going to do something,” Hurdle said. “Not maybe, but we were going to do something. … That was the plan all the way from spring training, mapping him out.”
Hurdle worries that sending a pitcher out there to start with a pitch or inning limit can be difficult mentally. So, that option came off the table.
“I’m more of a fan of maybe getting him away and telling him, ‘You’re off for a while, now go pitch,’” Hurdle said.
Other Notes
**Gerrit Cole and Ryan Vogelsong were scheduled to throw off a mound on Thursday. Busch Stadium has an indoor mound in the batting cage area where they were going to throw if the rainy weather prohibited them from doing so outside. Hurdle declined to say what the next step of their rehab assignments would be until after their work session.
**Starling Marte is not in the starting lineup on Thursday. The reason is simple: He’s 6-for-29 against St. Louis starting pitcher Adam Wainwright in his career.
“Starling’s numbers don’t match up very good with Mr. Wainwright, so we’re going to choose this opportunity just to pass him and get him ready for the three games in Chicago,” Hurdle said.
If this was a playoff game, Marte would be in the lineup, Hurdle said. Marte is hitting .318 with 25 stolen bases. He is one of five players that are vying for the final spot in the all-star game, which is dependent on a fan vote.
“He’s in a batting race, he’s a gold glove outfielder,” Hurdle said. “The WAR number is real and probably the highest number of the five guys that in play. It’s just legit. He’s legit. He’s a 5-tool player that plays the game and gets a little bit better every year.”
