BRADENTON, Fla. – The Pittsburgh Pirates have announced that right-handed pitcher Joe Musgrove experienced right shoulder discomfort on Sunday. Musgrove was scheduled to throw a live batting practice session, but missed that as a result of the discomfort.
No updates to his status today, other than the Pirates saying he will be treated and evaluated. So it’s unknown if this is precautionary due to the stage of Spring Training that we’re in, or whether it’s a big issue. We should learn more in the coming days, especially during the team injury update on Wednesday. It will also be telling how Musgrove handles his activities in coming days. He’s next scheduled to throw tomorrow.
The Pirates have been looking at Musgrove as a starter, and have him penciled in as the final man for the Opening Day rotation. If his injury does end up being serious enough to miss the start of the season, expect one of Tyler Glasnow or Steven Brault to take his place in the rotation.
UPDATE 8:13 AM: I’m working on a backlog of articles this morning, so I missed talking to Musgrove in the locker room. Via Adam Berry, Musgrove said that it was mostly precautionary.
Musgrove said it was just sore, mostly precautionary, shouldn’t be anything serious. Talked with trainers about being careful early this spring after a short offseason. https://t.co/gp4fbEsRuf
— Adam Berry (@adamdberry) February 19, 2018
That’s good news. We’ll see if he can get back on the mound tomorrow or sometime this week.