Pittsburgh Pirates: Jameson Taillon Makes More Progress

The Pittsburgh Pirates will be without multiple starting pitchers this year.  This includes a pitcher who is working his way back from Tommy John surgery.

The Pittsburgh Pirates were going to be in a tough situation with their pitching staff this year.  The big news during this downtime was that Chris Archer would be out for the year.  Archer underwent thoracic outlet surgery, which likely will end his career in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.

While this dominated headlines for the Bucs pitching staff, the team will also be without Jameson Taillon.  Taillon was set to break out as the team’s ace last season but seemed to struggle to get going.  It all made sense when it was announced that Taillon would undergo his second Tommy-John surgery.  He received the surgery in August and is set to miss the entire 2020 season.

Beyond 2020, there has been a lot of concern if Taillon would ever make it back to the mound.  Coming back from Tommy-John surgery and finding success is not an easy thing to do, let alone after a second surgery. This has not deterred the now 28-year-old.

The big right-hander continues to make progress and has been sharing his come back on his Twitter.  This morning he posted another video of him throwing, this time however was different than the previous videos of him throwing.  In his video below, Taillon is throwing to a catcher for the first time since undergoing surgery:

This is great news for Taillon and the Pittsburgh Pirates.  This team may seem far away from competing, but they have a lot of young players.  There’s a new coaching staff in place that can hopefully develop these players, something that the last regime struggled with towards the end of their tenure.  Hopefully Taillon can come back and join this developing core in 2021.