Another day of training camp saw another intrasquad scrimmage on Monday, but the Pittsburgh Pirates showed off some potential storylines for the start of the season.

Josh Bell crushed a homer. Joe Musgrove was humming. The pitching piggyback made its debut. Jarrod Dyson rounded the bases, too.

The best news of the day?

By the end of the week, the Pirates will play a team wearing a different uniform. Given that their nickname could change any day now, we’ll just say that they are coming from Cleveland.

JB's hittin' dingers. ? pic.twitter.com/CoLTdvLplj

— Pirates (@Pirates) July 13, 2020

1. Cleaning up: In the first inning, Bell crushed a 402-foot home run with an exit velocity of 110 mph to the right-field seats off Joe Musgrove.

That’s the kind of encore power the Pirates are expecting from their All-Star first baseman at the cleanup spot, especially after his 37-homer, 116-RBI season in 2019.

Interesting enough, Bell batted third and Gregory Polanco fourth for the Gold squad.

The 5-foot-9, 165-pound Dyson struck out in his first three at bats but later homered. Perhaps his power is coming with age. Dyson has only 21 career homers but had seven last season for Arizona.

“Dyson went yard,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “Yes, he did. It was nice to see. Fastest guy running around the bases in the big leagues.”

I’ll say this for baseball in an empty PNC Park: The crack of the ball in the catcher’s glove accentuates the pitchers’ velocity. pic.twitter.com/pYkI8uN7r6

— Jerry DiPaola (@JDiPaola_Trib) July 13, 2020

2. Smokin’ Joe: That seemed like the only pitch Musgrove missed, as he stated his case to be the Opening Day starter. Musgrove had six strikeouts through the first three innings, striking out Cole Tucker, Luke Maile and Jarrod Dyson in the third.

When asked what he liked about Musgrove, Shelton flipped the script.

“I think more the question would be what I didn’t like about Joe Musgrove,” Shelton said. “I think he made one bad pitch tonight, and you guys saw it. Josh capitalized on it, which was kind of a win-win. He executed one pitch poorly, and Josh hit a home run.

“One thing that really stood out to me was his ability to use all his pitches. He had an at-bat with Dyson where he threw a changeup, and it wasn’t a good one and it was up and ‘Dyse’ fouled it off. Then he came back with probably the best one he had thrown of the night. So the ability to repeat the pitch, I talked to (catcher John Ryan Murphy) about it afterward. His feel on his pitches tonight was about as close to being ready for the season, I think, as you can see out of a guy.”

3. See you in St. Louis?: Shelton didn’t answer the question, though.

With Jameson Taillon out following Tommy John surgery and Chris Archer out after neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome surgery, Musgrove should be next in line to start the opener July 24 in St. Louis.

That’s something Musgrove has made it known that he wants.

Most conversations Shelton and pitching coach Oscar Marin are having are about the starting pitching, but they are proceeding with caution amid the three-month shutdown because of the covid-19 pandemic.

“I think the big part of that, not to sound like a broken record, but every day that we go and we stay healthy is a day closer to us having a really good idea of where we’re going to be,” Shelton said. “Health plays a large part of that. You don’t want to make decisions prematurely, because then somebody tweaks something and it’s like, ‘Well, we made this decision we’re going to do that.’

“So, every day, as we continue to get healthy is probably the most important thing. We’ll probably, within the next few days, have a good idea of how that’s going to line up.”

4. Piggyback ride: The Pirates gave their first glimpse of a pitching piggyback, with left-hander Steven Brault throwing 43 pitches in the first three innings and righty Chad Kuhl throwing 45 pitches in the next three (plus 10 more in the bullpen).

It’s something Brault brought up last week and Shelton confirmed, promising only to get creative with solutions for the fifth spot in the starting rotation.

“I didn’t notice there was a piggyback,” Shelton deadpanned. “I’m glad you guys noticed that. I thought it was good. You saw the ability for Brault to spin the slider from the left-hand side, then Chad came in from the right-hand side.

“It was a nice look for us. We were able to get some feedback from our hitters on it, which is always encouraging. The one thing that, as you guys see, there’s a lot of communication and a lot of collaboration going on amongst the players talking back and forth with what’s going on. When you can have guys talking to Joe about how his changeup worked or how Brault looked and then how they had to do to face Kuhl, it’s nice for not only myself but for Oscar and (bullpen coach Justin Meccage) to get some feedback on the pitching side of that.”

Speaking of feedback, third baseman Colin Moran addressed the difficulty of that lefty-right matchup as a hitter.

“It’s definitely different, different angles, that’s for sure,” Moran said. “Brault has a sharp slider and Chad has sharp stuff pretty much for all his repertoire.”

?Mark your calendars! ?

All regular season @Pirates games, with the exception of nationally televised games, will be carried live on AT&T SportsNet! pic.twitter.com/8GjH4PCZhU

— AT&T SportsNet™ PIT (@ATTSportsNetPIT) July 13, 2020

5. Almost game time: The Pirates announced a three-game exhibition series against Cleveland, with games on Saturday and Wed., July 22 at PNC Park sandwiching a visit Monday to Progressive Field.

All three games will start at 7:05 p.m., with television broadcast on AT&T SportsNet and radio broadcast on 93.7 The Fan and the Pirates Radio Network.

“Tremendous value in those because you’re seeing the different uniforms and that’s what we want to do,” Shelton said, crediting Pirates general manager Ben Cherington and Cleveland president Chris Antonetti for their willingness to set up the games. “There’s a little bit of travel involved, which is great.”

The Pirates play Cleveland six times in interleague play this season, including the final series of the regular season. For now, Shelton finds importance in facing another team before the Pirates open regular-season play against the Cardinals so that he and bench coach Don Kelly can work on their game strategy.

“We need those kind of opportunities,” Shelton said. “We can simulate them here, but it’s our own guys. Once we get into a real game setting, there are going to be things that pop up that I guarantee you we didn’t think about. Donnie and I have gone through our notes from all the (spring) games and tried to simulate things we think we need to do. But there are going to be situations in these games that we have not thought about, and it gives us practice on it.”

For Pirates players, it will be their first chance since March to face pitchers with which they aren’t so familiar in a game setting, something the intrasquad games can’t truly replicate.

“It’s exciting to face other uniforms and other pitchers. It will be good just to compete against other teams,” Moran said. “It’s fun hitting off your own pitchers, good for bragging rights, but it will be good to lock in on a real opponent.”

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