BRADENTON, Fla. – Elias Diaz has been rehabbing in Bradenton for the last week, and is taking the next step in his progression this week. Diaz progressed to seven innings on Sunday, going seven for the second game in his four game rehab so far. For typical rehab schedules, a player will go five innings twice, seven innings twice, and nine innings twice, before being activated. The Pirates are taking a more conservative approach here.
Diaz won’t advance to nine innings right away. Instead, he will catch again tonight, giving him back-to-back seven inning games. He will get a day off on Tuesday, then will go back-to-back seven inning games on Wednesday and Thursday. After another day off on Friday, he will catch nine innings on Saturday. All of this will take place in Bradenton.
Following the Saturday start, Diaz will go to Altoona, where he will continue the assignment. The Pirates do have a timeline to work with, as Diaz needs to be activated from the disabled list no later than July 24th. But if he’s up to nine inning games, they could activate him and send him to Triple-A easily, to continue his work.
As for the surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow, Diaz said that everything is feeling good.
“The surgery helped me a lot,” Diaz said. “I feel much better. I’ve got to keep working on my elbow, take care of it everyday.”
Diaz tried to come back before the surgery, after undergoing rest. However, when he started up his throwing, he was feeling pain in his elbow. Since the surgery, he has only felt the normal soreness that comes with throwing after surgery as you’re building back up.
The injury and the surgery comes during a bad year. Both of the top catchers in Pittsburgh are on the disabled list, meaning that without the injury and the surgery, Diaz would currently be the starting catcher in Pittsburgh. Instead, he’s likely to return after Francisco Cervelli returns, and unlikely to be moved up to the majors immediately when he’s activated from the DL. Diaz wants to be there, but knows that getting healthy is the most important thing.
“I want to be there, but I can’t rush anything,” Diaz said. “I’ve got to be healthy, 100%, before I get there.”
If he remains healthy, then we will almost certainly see him as a September call-up, or an injury replacement if the injury bug keeps hitting the primary catchers.
