Injured at an inopportune time, OF Greg Allen perseveres to make Pirates debut

It was not surprising Greg Allen was in a good mood while he stood at his locker Saturday afternoon. After all, he was just hours from his season debut and being in the starting lineup for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

What might be a little surprising was Allen’s upbeat disposition didn’t change even when discussing the past 3 ½ months during which he suffered two injuries that long delayed his first regular-season game for the Pirates.

“In life you’ve always got a lot of obstacles that might come your way, and things don’t always go according to plan,” Allen said. “You’ve just got to just do the best you can to make the best of the situation.

“It’s part of the journey.”

Pirates OF Greg Allen on the long road to make his season debut pic.twitter.com/ycI7aF9y0A

— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) July 23, 2022

Allen’s journey brought him to starting in center field and batting second for Saturday’s game against the Miami Marlins at PNC Park. The 29-year-old Allen had played parts of the past five MLB seasons with three other teams. His sixth season would have begun much earlier had he not suffered an injury to his left hamstring during the third-to-last game of spring training.

That stung for Allen, who had a 1.303 OPS in Grapefruit League play and appeared well on his way to earning a spot on the active roster when camp broke 72 hours later.

Instead, Allen faced two months of rehab. It became three months when he then tweaked his other hamstring, delaying the process further.

“Not everything goes according to plan,” Allen said, “regardless of how much you were hoping to prefer that to be the case. So in terms of the setbacks, it wasn’t ideal. But understanding the process and where things work, especially with soft-tissue injuries, it’s not always just a linear path forward with it. There’s going to be some times where you have some trial and error trying to figure out what works best for the body, what works best for the athlete as an individual. That’s kind of what we went through.”

If the switch-hitting Allen’s initial injury came at an inopportune time, his clearing for a return to action came during a more favorable sequence of events. Starting center fielder Bryan Reynolds is on the injured list, and the Pirates just traded middle-of-the-lineup designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach. Manager Derek Shelton said Saturday the team is still sorting through its option for DH, indicating outfielders could shuffle in and out of that role. That could, in turn, lead to more opportunity for Allen.

“The one thing we will have to be conscious of is, Greg I think had three games left on his rehab (assignment). We did bring him up because of (the trade of Vogelbach),” Shelton said. “He’s only played back-to-back once. So monitoring and a lot of communication with what his health is, is going to be the most important thing in terms of where he plays right now.”

#Pirates A to Z: Speedy switch-hitter Greg Allen has opportunity to win spot in the outfield https://t.co/RbSkjvZHtj

— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) December 5, 2021

Even with the lower-body, soft-tissue nature of Allen’s ailment, though, Shelton said the Pirates would not shy away from playing him on defense, an area he has the tools to excel.

In 614 career plate appearances for the Cleveland Indians, San Diego Padres and New York Yankees, Allen has a .241/.307/.348 slash line. Allen joins Ben Gamel, Jake Marisnick and rookie Cal Mitchell as the lone true outfielders on the 26-man active roster.

“Credit to him because he got hurt in spring training and has been grinding hard to get back,” Shelton said. “I know he would have liked to have been back sooner than July 23.

“It’s nice to have a guy that’s kind of a veteran guy back in our clubhouse — especially with Bryan being out — and a guy who’s played center field to give Jake a chance get a little bit of break, because we ran him pretty hard before the All-Star break.”

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