PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Pirates Ke'Bryan Hayes is back hitting and made 'real nice progress' over the last 48 hours. He is eligible to come of the injured list today. That won't happen, when might it?
"It's a safe assumption that he won't be activated for this series," said Pirates Director of Sports Medicine Todd Tomczyk on Wednesday. "That does not forecast in the future for the next one (Friday in Milwaukee)."
Hayes is currently hitting soft toss from a coach in an indoor cage, so he has yet to resume batting practice hitting. Tomczyk says he will begin to introduce different stresses to see how his body responds once the soreness resolves and the joint and wrist itself regains motion and function. So while he's improved over the last two days, he's still not in the clear.
What does Tomczyk need to see to clear him to play?
"Continue to build confidence in his swing," Tomczyk said. "Continue to not have any residual soreness or residual pain. This is going to have to be an injury situation where he has to regain that confidence that he can be Ke'Bryan on the field. It's hard enough for any veteran to do that, let alone a very young player like Ke'Bryan."
"We want him to feel confident for the remainder of the season and not just make this a short-term gain."
Tomczyk is aware Hayes is a potential star and is key to their team, but is trying to take a long-term approach.
"We don't want to make a very reactive decision based on the great progress he's made," Tomczyk said. "We want to make sure Ke'Bryan has the confidence. We want to make sure he is Ke'Bryan before he returns to the field."
"All the fans want to see Ke'Bryan back out there. Most importantly, Ke'Bryan is making the right, necessary strides to return sooner, rather than later."
When that date is appears to be up to the 27 bones, 27 joints, 34 muscles and over 100 ligaments and tendons in Hayes' wrist. If I could talk to them, I would. They haven't been made available to reporters on a Zoom call yet.
