Ryan O’Hearn had three minutes.
This was Friday afternoon, prior to the series opener against the Minnesota Twins. O’Hearn was shuffling back and forth between a few different activities and had to throw a dry T-shirt over his sports bra before heading out to the field.
Wait ... his sports what?
Yes, O’Hearn will return on Sunday, essentially two weeks ahead of schedule from a right quad strain, and one of the ways he pushed the pace was by wearing a Catapult GPS tracking vest that very much looks like a sports bra.
“You wanna talk about the fact that it’s a bra for a man?” O’Hearn said. “Yeah, I don’t like wearing it. But I’m wearing it because they want me to.”
“They” in this case refers to head major league athletic trainer Luke Novosel, as well as head major league strength and conditioning coach Alan Burr.
O’Hearn, who’s hitting .289 with an .827 OPS in 44 games, grew antsy fast on the injured list. He said he got way more nervous in the dugout than on the field.
Signed this offseason to a two-year, $29 million deal, O’Hearn has been proud of what the Pirates have been able to do and wants to be on the field as much as possible.
Which is why he did whatever he was told as far as recovery ... and also upped the intensity.
“It’s faster than originally anticipated,” O’Hearn said. “Training staff did a great job. I feel like I healed up pretty quick.”
The vest tracked how much O’Hearn moved in a day, and the Pirates matched that to what he typically did as an outfielder.
O’Hearn actually likened it to the Hawk-Eye technology that drives Statcast and the new ABS system, with those numbers used to informed how hard a team and player can push.
“There are all these boxes I had to check to get cleared, then they monitor all my on-field stuff compared to what a normal day in the outfield would be, to see how the workload compares to a game,” O’Hearn said. “That way I’m not getting thrown back into a workload that I haven’t experienced.
“I think I’m in a good spot. Excited with how the recovery went. Ready to go.”
Jason Mackey: Jason.Mackey@pirates.com and @JMackey_PGH.