Pirates' Chad Kuhl, Steven Brault will start separately in Cincinnati - TribLIVE

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Derek Shelton will break up the Chad Kuhl/Steven Brault piggyback situation in his starting rotation.

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ manager said Kuhl will start Friday in the second game of the series in Cincinnati; Brault gets the start Saturday.

Shelton’s reasoning is simple. The Pirates need another arm in the rotation with Joe Musgrove on the injured list with right triceps inflammation.

“With Joe coming out, it seemed like the logical decision,” Shelton said.

But he added that Brault earned another start when he pitched well Sunday against the Detroit Tigers only two days after failing to get an out in relief of Kuhl.

“Picking us up and being a really good teammate,” Shelton said.

In two of his past three outings (five innings), Brault has not allowed a hit while striking out five and walking one.

Shelton wouldn’t commit to a designated length for Brault or Kuhl, neither of whom has pitched beyond four innings this season while recovering from injuries.

“There’ll be some sort of restrictions,” Shelton said. “I don’t know if the training wheels will be off at all this year because of monitoring what they came back off of.”

Injury update

Pirates director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk said relief pitcher Nick Burdi, who has a “significant” right forearm strain, won’t need surgery. He’ll be shut down for 10-12 weeks, however.

“The recommendation was to undergo an injection, a biologic injection,” Tomczyk said. “A new prognosis will be made at that time.”

Tomczyk said Burdi’s most recent injury is tied to his previous neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome diagnosis and subsequent surgery.

“There’s still some remnants of those symptoms, which is common for athletes who undergo TOS surgery,” he said. “Nerves, as we all know, can take a long time to heal and recover.”

Tomczyk also offered a progress report on several other injured players:

• Kyle Crick (shoulder) threw in the bullpen Tuesday and “came out of that very well. Long-term vision, long-term goal with him is to throw live to hitters most likely early next week,” he said.

• Michael Feliz (elbow) has been told not to throw for six to eight weeks.

• Clay Holmes (elbow) will be down for four to six weeks. Burdi, Feliz and Holmes are lost for the season.

• Tomczyk said Mitch Keller continues to make progress in his rehab from a side injury and will play catch in the next few days. “Once he does play catch, we’ll see how he responds to that and have a nice build-up from there.”

• Musgrove, who also has an ankle injury, has been troubled by periodic triceps inflammation since early in spring training 2.0. He is on the 10-day injured list. “We all felt it was in Joe’s best interest, both short and long term, to give it a little bit of further pause to make sure the inflammation is completely out of the elbow region before he resumes throwing.” Musgrove will play catch over the weekend.

• Phil Evans, who suffered a concussion and facial and mouth fractures in a collision with Gregory Polanco on Saturday, does not need surgery at this time.

Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jerry by email at jdipaola@triblive.com or via Twitter .

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