After playing twice in 8 days, Pirates ready to face gauntlet of games

Jacob Stallings couldn’t decide which was weirder, the Pittsburgh Pirates being stuck in isolation in Cincinnati when their weekend series was postponed because of coronavirus concerns or waiting until MLB decided whether they would play a doubleheader Monday.

Safety concerns beat the boredom.

“Sunday was more stressful and more up in the air because you know there were just kind of mixed feelings about playing on Monday with the incubation period,” Stallings said. “And some guys were definitely uncomfortable with that, and ultimately MLB decided for us not to play. … We were trying to figure out what we wanted to do as a team and, obviously, guys want to play but I think the overwhelming sentiment was that we can make those games up later and we don’t want to end up playing one day and costing ourselves two weeks of games if something were to happen.”

Now, after playing only two games in an eight-day span in the past week because of postponements against the Reds and St. Louis Cardinals, the Pirates face a gauntlet of games. They entered their six-game homestand, starting with Tuesday’s game against the Cleveland Indians at PNC Park, with 41 days to play their remaining 42 games, including a doubleheader against the Cardinals next week.

“I think they’ve handled it as well as they could handle it,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “I think we’re all in an unknown situation here, and really no one knows what we’re going to do or how we’re going to do it. The fact that you get told, ‘Hey, you’re going to be sequestered in a hotel room, and you’re going to sit there,’ or ‘We’re not going to have games, and you’re going to come in and work out,’ I think it’s an adjustment period for all of us. I’m really proud of our group with how they’ve handled it so far, because we’re all in unknown territory.”

The Pirates remain focused on following the health and safety protocols, which included testing for covid-19 three times in a four-day span after back-to-back testing Saturday and Sunday in Cincinnati. As frustrating as he found it to have two games postponed after a Reds player tested positive Friday night, Stallings was more worried about crossing paths with so many opponents while catching.

“Obviously, MLB and the teams and the players want to get the season in, but just with the outbreaks, it’s just concerning, not only from a baseball, playing games standpoint, but just from a health and safety,” Stallings said. “We don’t know much about the virus in the grand scheme of things, and I was right next to a lot of their players for a couple days, so there was anxiety for me, just, ‘What if? What if? What if?’ ”

Shelton said MLB and the Players Association “definitely talk and take players’ feelings into account” about whether to play games when there is potential for a postponement and before making decisions on squeezing doubleheaders into the schedule.

Not only has it forced the Pirates to shuffle their starting rotation, but Shelton worries it increases the risk of injury when players go from having so many days off to playing so many games in a short span.

“Major League Baseball obviously has to make decisions that they feel are best,” Shelton said. “I think we made the right decision in terms of Monday and not playing. If our players didn’t have anxiety about what’s going on, it would concern me. Because we’re dealing with a global pandemic, and we’re dealing with adjustments and how things go, then you hear about a player who tests positive and you have concerns about your family and your wife. This makes it bigger than everything.”