The Pirates have given many of their top prospects chances to play spring games, but they’ve also been honest with them about their role with the club this season. Before Quinn Priester pitched on Monday against the Orioles, manager Derek Shelton said he let Priester know he wouldn’t break camp with the team, so he should go out there, have fun and compete.

Therefore, the initial roster cuts on Tuesday came as little surprise, as Pittsburgh whittles down its group in the second half of camp.

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The club optioned Rodolfo Castro, Roansy Contreras, Oneil Cruz, Max Kranick and Nick Mears. In addition, the Pirates reassigned 10 players to their Minor League complex at Pirate City: Cody Bolton, Jason Delay, Nick Gonzales, Jandel Gustave, Mason Martin, Cal Mitchell, Liover Peguero, Priester, Canaan Smith-Njigba and Travis Swaggerty.

On Wednesday, they followed those initial cuts by reassigning Ji-Hwan Bae, Christian Kelley and Arden Pabst to Minor League camp. Every player reassigned or optioned saw spring action except for Gustave.

Gonzales (No. 43), Priester (No. 52) and Cruz (No. 64) are Pittsburgh's representatives on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 Prospects list, and are also among the Pirates' Top 10 prospects. Peguero (No. 5), Swaggerty (No. 9), Bolton (No. 10), Bae (No. 14), Martin (No. 15), Mitchell (No. 18), Contreras (No. 20), Smith-Njigba (No. 26) and Kranick (No. 28) were among the club’s 2021 Top 30 Prospects as revealed on Wednesday.

There are, of course, procedural considerations behind those moves. If injured beyond this point in Spring Training, players without a prior year of service time with the organization would have to be put on the Major League injured list and thus accrue service time and pay.

There’s also the consideration that the Pirates will eventually need the roster trimmed down as they approach Opening Day, when their 75-man spring roster shrinks to 26.

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Some of the guys sent down saw a lot of Grapefruit League action. Swaggerty saw the most games, entering in 13 contests to play the outfield and get a few at-bats. Mears saw the second-most games of any pitcher on the team, appearing in six tilts and allowing three runs on four hits with five walks to four strikeouts in six innings.

And a few of those players sent down may be some of the first to be called up this season. Mears pitched in four games in 2020 and could be turned to as the Pirates try to piece together innings coming off a 60-game season.

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Despite going 1-for-12 in Spring Training, Cruz is not far from the Majors and is a September callup candidate. His looks in center field are a sign that he and the club are willing to experiment to see how quickly the natural shortstop can not only be Major League-ready, but find a spot on the roster.

General ticketing delayed for home games
The Pirates have delayed the expected on-sale date of general tickets to their first 12 home games, the team announced on Tuesday.

The tickets were set to be made available on Wednesday. However, due to Monday's announcement by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf regarding restrictions being eased for outdoor venues, the Pirates are using this postponement to try to make more seating available.

"We are continuing our capacity planning discussions with Governor Wolf, state and local officials, as well as our medical expert partners at Highmark and AHN," Pirates president Travis Williams said in a statement. "We expect to announce those plans in the coming days. We appreciate the support and patience of our fans as we work through this together."

Worth noting
• After a couple of injury-inducing collisions last season, Pittsburgh was relieved to see Chad Kuhl stay in Tuesday's 4-2 win against the Twins after Colin Moran ran into him trying to field a pop fly from Nelson Cruz in the first inning.

Kuhl said he gave the infielders priority for the high popup and lowered his head, believing he’d moved out of the way. But as Moran tracked the ball, his path crossed with Kuhl, who stayed down momentarily before going on to complete three scoreless innings. Todd Frazier made the catch for the out.

“It’s just one of those freak plays that happened,” Kuhl said. “But Frazier caught it, and I’m all right.”

• Shelton revealed that Tyler Bashlor has been delayed from game action due to back stiffness. The right-handed reliever allowed eight runs in 8 1/3 innings last season.

• Twins manager Rocco Baldelli had some more fun with Shelton on Tuesday. The two spent time on Minnesota's coaching staff from 2018-19, when Baldelli was the manager and Shelton was the bench coach. Before Tuesday's game, the videoboard played the film of the socially distanced argument Shelton had with an umpire on July 26 during a game against the Cardinals.

“I saw Rocco briefly when we came in,” Shelton said. “He had a smirk on his face, so I knew he did something.”

Up next
A pair of former top prospects for the Pirates will duel on Wednesday, when Tyler Glasnow matches up against Mitch Keller in a 1:05 p.m. ET tilt between the Rays and the Bucs at LECOM Park. Chase De Jong, Richard Rodríguez, Michael Feliz, Kyle Crick and Clay Holmes are scheduled to follow Keller. The game will be broadcast live on MLB.TV.