BRADENTON, Fla. -- On Sunday, the Pirates will take on the Orioles for their first spring training game of the year.
Here’s what we know about that game: Chad Kuhl will start. (Don’t read too far into that. It’s his throw day and Oscar Marin was the one who made the call.) First pitch will be at 1:05 p.m. You can catch it on the radio, but not on TV (the first televised game won’t be until the home opener on Mar. 2).
Here’s what we don’t know: How many innings are going to be played, and if those innings are actually going to have three outs.
Major League Baseball’s new health and safety protocols for this season call for several changes for how spring training games are structured, the most obvious being the departure from nine-inning games. If both teams’ managers agree to it, games can be shortened to seven innings. Games can actually be as short as five innings through Mar. 13, which is roughly the first half of the spring schedule.
Derek Shelton and Orioles manager Brandon Hyde had yet to discuss if the game would be shortened yet as of Friday afternoon, but Shelton anticipates teams taking advantage of the lightened workload. He prefaced that it was a guess, but he predicts that about one game in every four will actually be nine innings. If that prediction is true, that would eliminate at least one-sixth of competitive innings in a four day stretch, and as much as one-third.
Shelton gave a couple reasons for his prediction, starting with work volume. There are also fewer players to share that volume. In a normal spring training, teams will often send out lower-level minor-league players to fill out the lineup in the final innings. With spring training rosters capped at 75 players this year, that’s a luxury teams no longer have.
“I think you're gonna see a lot of teams doing it, not only for pitching, but for position player volume early on,” Shelton said. “One of the things we have to be very aware of with all groups is when we came in and did intake, we sat for two days, possibly three days for some guys. We have to be aware that they lost those days of training coming in, and we have to be mindful of that."
Those seven innings may not be full “innings” either. Managers will have the option to call off an inning after a pitcher has thrown at least 20 pitches. That way, teams don’t have to use multiple pitchers or stretch someone further than they feel comfortable with in order to complete an inning.
Shelton called it an old-school minor-league spring training rule, one that anticipates will be well-received and also utilized across the league.
“I would bet that if you asked all 30 managers, they wished it would have gone in five years ago,” Shelton said. “I think it's going to be really vital for starting pitchers as we go later into camp, when you're trying to get two or three ups and then something happens. The player health and safety part of this is way more important than anything else in any spring training, but especially this spring training.”
MORE FROM PIRATE CITY
• Adam Frazier was not on the field for the second practice in a row, with Shelton citing a groin injury.
"It's nothing that's anything, but it's the first week of spring training, so definitely air on the side of conservation," Shelton said.
That injury could limit Frazier a bit early in the spring training schedule. He has been able to do some work indoors the last two days.
• Steven Brault, JT Brubaker, Sean Poppen, Chris Stratton, Tyler Bashlor, Cody Bolton, Cody Ponce and Braeden Ogle all threw live batting practices Friday.
Some quick notes from those sessions:
Colin Moran hung in there against Brault and even lined a crisp single to right.
Brubaker left his session asking Marin about his changeup and breaking ball while the ball is still in his glove. I couldn’t make out a lot, but perhaps there was a concern about tipping? Brubaker was the one who initiated the chat. Stratton and Marin had a couple conversations while warming up for live BP. They occurred well, well out of earshot, so no insight there other than one of them saw something that merited discussion.
Poppen’s slider got a big smile out of Ke’Bryan Hayes at the end of their at-bat. Hayes took the pitch, but he was ready to go.
Ponce’s curve looked like it had a little more loop than I remember. Might have been the angle I was at.
Bashlor and Bolton gave up some loud contact in their sessions, with Bryan Reynolds taking Bashlor deep and Will Craig going yard against Bolton.
• Oneil Cruz put on a show in batting practice early Friday, driving multiple balls deep to left off the spin machine. The pitch was breaking away and he routinely went with it. That’s something to keep an eye on in game situations where he doesn’t know when a spin pitch is coming.
Nevertheless, it was an impressive show of power.
• In news away from Florida, the Pirates and Entercom Pittsburgh announced a multi-year extension to keep 93.7 The Fan the home of Pirates radio broadcasts. Select games, including opening day and weekday afternoon games, will also be simulcast on KDKA News Radio 100.1 FM and 1020 KDKA-AM.
