After months of being away, there are Pirates on the shore of the Allegheny once again.
Wednesday was the first day to report for the Pirates as spring training 2.0 began to take shape at PNC Park. More players should arrive Thursday as Major League Baseball chartered flights for many players from the Dominican Republic.
The first team workout will be Friday morning, but some players started to do light drills Wednesday.
"It was nice to see people back on the field," Derek Shelton said during a Zoom call. "It was nice to see guys back together, although it was in much smaller groups and away from each other. But there was baseball activity on PNC. That was something that fired me up.”
The alternate summer camp in Altoona, Pa., should start in the near future, but they will drag behind the MLB camp a little to make sure all protocols are met.
This return to PNC Park has come later than expected, even without taking the COVID-19 pandemic into consideration. Pitching coach Oscar Marin told me in May that they were planning to return around June 10, the original date MLB hoped to start summer camp. As negotiations between the league and players association went on, that date kept getting pushed back.
During the shutdown, coaches told players to stay ready for the return. Once it became clear negotiations were coming to a close and the season was about to start, Shelton said the message became, "OK, it’s go time."
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