The day has come, baseball fans. Spring Training is officially upon us as pitchers and catchers — with a handful of position players — took part in the teams first workout of the 2014 season.
All 36 pitchers and catchers invited to spring training were in attendance while position players Chase d’Arnaud, Chris McGuiness, Jordy Mercer, Neil Walker, Jaff Decker, Jose Tabata and Gaby Sanchez attended as well. Only Kyle McPherson and Wandy Rodriguez didn’t participate due to rehab from injuries. Wandy is scheduled to throw his first bullpen on Friday.
Rob Biertempfel of the Trib reported Sanchez got into better shape during the offseason in hopes of taking the job at 1B.
.@GabySanchez15 has noticeably packed on muscle and dropped about 20 pounds of flab. Somebody *really* wants that #Pirates 1B job.
— Rob Biertempfel (@BiertempfelTrib) February 13, 2014
Clint Hurdle spoke to the media following the workouts and discussed the upcoming season and building from last year.
“The angst that we all felt after game 5 in St. Louis — we earned that and we are definitely looking forward to taking the next step,” said Hurdle. “I shared with them earlier today, It’s not about maintaining or sustaining anything, it’s about us continuing to work hard to improve. All of the questions were, ‘When are you going to win?’ Well, we won. Now, we’ve got to take another step forward. I think it’s a matter of embracing it and I’m definitely looking forward to it.”
Hurdle also discussed the pitching staff without A.J. Burnett.
“I think one of the exciting things is it opens up opportunities for men that we have here in camp,” said Hurdle. “One of the things that you continually want to give to people is opportunities. We’ve got depth in the starting rotation and we’ve got some guys in place that faired well for us and had good, solid campaigns for us last year and some guys are still growing — it could be one guy, it could be two guys to pick up the volume of innings. That’s a concern when you have anybody that leaves a rotation that’s pitched close to 200 innings in back-to-back seasons.”
The Pirates also made an acquisition by signing LHP Yao-Hsun Yang to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training as a non-roster player.
Yang made nine appearances while pitching in the minor leagues in Japan during the 2013 season.
The 31-year-old native of Taiwan has posted a 5-5 record and a 3.08 ERA (90.2ip/29er) in 38 appearances (12 starts) in his career with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in the Japanese Central League during parts of six seasons (2006, 2008-2010 and 2012).
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(Photo Credit: Kim Klement / USA Today Sports)
