{"id":795777,"date":"2026-09-03T18:48:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/795777\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T18:48:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:48:30","slug":"konnor-griffin-could-return-friday-for-pirates-in-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/795777\/","title":{"rendered":"Konnor Griffin could return Friday for Pirates in Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pirates rookie Konnor Griffin eyes Friday return in Pittsburgh after months on injured list<\/p>\n

\"AssociatedPITTSBURGH \u2014<\/p>\n

Konnor Griffin is ready to get back to work.<\/p>\n

The Pittsburgh Pirates rookie shortstop said Thursday that he feels good and is hopeful of being activated off the 60-day injured list on Friday when Pittsburgh opens a three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n

VIDEO ABOVE: Pirates GM sees potential for hot streak in September<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old Griffin hasn\u2019t played since early July<\/a> due to an issue with the knuckle on the ring finger of his left hand. Griffin wore a splint for about six weeks and has played a handful of games while on a rehab assignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been driving me nuts watching the games on my phone,\u201d said Griffin, who signed a massive contract extension<\/a> in April shortly after making his debut. \u201cIt\u2019ll be fun to finally be back in there competing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pirates have fallen off the pace in the National League playoff race in Griffin\u2019s absence. Pittsburgh entered Thursday\u2019s game against San Francisco 5 1\/2 games back of the final wild card spot.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh remains intent on having Griffin return this season. The team says the risk of re-injury is small and it\u2019s important to get him more experience during the nascent stage of his career.<\/p>\n

Griffin has been electric at times. He\u2019s hitting .276 with five homers, 25 RBIs and 20 stolen bases in 59 games during a season that\u2019s been disrupted by multiple trips to the injured list.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just cool to see how my body has been able to overcome these injuries,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s a good sign for me. I\u2019m pumped to be back here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly, Griffin is pain-free.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did some grip strength testing,\u201d he said. \u201cThose numbers were actually a lot higher than they should have been, which was a good sign for me. That gave me a lot of confidence, squeezing a bat, squeezing a glove wasn\u2019t gonna be an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pirates rookie Konnor Griffin eyes Friday return in Pittsburgh after months on injured list PITTSBURGH \u2014 Konnor Griffin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[97525,92036,24233,5,10454,434,91414,14,19534,2540,10833,9545,36263,3485,56,12043,4,505,97526,97524,10,97521,97522,776,64,4297,4580,97523,30316,378,1479,32,6272,8920],"class_list":["post-795777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-20-year-old-griffin","tag-60-day-injured-list","tag-absence","tag-baseball","tag-contract-extension","tag-friday","tag-friday-return","tag-game","tag-hot-streak","tag-injured-list","tag-issue","tag-konnor-griffin","tag-left-hand","tag-list","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-lot","tag-mlb","tag-national-league","tag-national-league-playoff-race","tag-pain-free","tag-pirates","tag-pirates-rookie","tag-pirates-shortstop","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-pittsburghpirates","tag-rehab-assignment","tag-ring-finger","tag-rookie-season","tag-san-francisco","tag-season","tag-stolen-bases","tag-thursday","tag-wild-card-race"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}