By the time JT Brubaker throws the first pitch Tuesday night at PNC Park, the Pittsburgh Pirates will have more games to play (42) than there are days remaining (41) in the season.
With a 4-14 record that is the worst in MLB and eight pitchers on the injured list (five lost for the season), Derek Shelton faces another in a long line of challenges in his rookie season as Pirates manager.
The two games postponed in Cincinnati on Saturday and Sunday when a Reds player tested positive for covid-19 will be made up later in the season. Shelton said he wasn’t told when the games will be played, but they won’t be Monday when both teams are idle.
That gives the Pirates’ pitching staff, which has the second-worst ERA in the National League (5.55), more time to regroup, but less time to rest later in the season. The Pirates have played only twice since Aug. 9 after the three-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals was postponed last week.
By all appearances, this strange, truncated season — with its starts and stops — hasn’t bothered Shelton to the point where he publicly complains about it. In fact, he believes it can lead to better days ahead.
“Challenging is probably the word because you’re always dealing with the unknown,” he said. “It’s going to make me and our group better because we learn every day and we have to adapt and adjust. And I think in our positions, especially my job, there is a lot of adapting and adjusting.
“I’m hoping by going through this, this is going to be make me better at dealing with things.”
First on the list is making sure everyone on his roster and staff is healthy after they played two games at Great American Ball Park and spent two more days quarantined in a Cincinnati hotel not knowing if they had been exposed to covid-19.
That was of grave concern initially, but Shelton said his team was tested Saturday without any positive tests and again Sunday. They worked out at Great American Ball Park late Sunday afternoon before flying home. Shelton plans to have pitchers throw and others do light work Monday at PNC Park.
“We anticipate having no one being held back (for the start of the three-game series Tuesday with the Cleveland Indians),” he said. “We anticipate everybody being fine.”
The next task is rearranging the starting rotation.
Brubaker will start Tuesday in his first appearance since Aug. 6 when he made his major-league debut against the Minnesota Twins. Steven Brault, who was scheduled Saturday in Cincinnati, and Trevor Williams will go Wednesday and Thursday.
With Joe Musgrove on the injured list, the plan was to return Brubaker to the rotation. The major alteration is skipping Derek Holland.
Holland hasn’t pitched since Aug. 8 when he surrendered five home runs, eight other hits and nine earned runs in an 11-5 loss to the Detroit Tigers. The five-inning effort dropped his ERA to 8.27.
“He’s fine. He’s starting later in the week,” Shelton said.
The Pirates have three games with the Milwaukee Brewers, starting Friday at PNC Park, but Shelton didn’t indicate in which game Holland will work.
