WASHINGTON — Jung Ho Kang reported to the Pirates’ spring training facility in Bradenton, Fla., manager Clint Hurdle said Tuesday, and began the process of receiving his physical exams.
Kang returned to the United States last week after receiving a waiver that granted him a work visa following more than a year during which a DUI arrest prevented him from obtaining one.
“There will be on-field activity, may have already started,” Hurdle said. “The process is to get him a complete — as complete as we can within 30 days — major league spring training. That’s being mapped out as we speak.”
Kang was arrested for his third DUI since 2009 in December 2016 in Seoul, the capital of his native South Korea. The State Department denied his visa application in early 2017 and he missed the entire season.
“There will be no game activity until we get his arm in shape, his legs in shape, get him swinging, get our people to look at him and evaluate him and then go from there,” Hurdle said. “Everything’s in the pretty early stages of being set up.”
Kang is on the restricted list, where he does not receive salary or service time. The Pirates can keep him there, general manager Neal Huntington said last week, until he is ready to compete at the highest level. Kang is also completing a treatment program that the joint panel he appeared before, as a result of his DUI, recommended. Neither Major League Baseball nor the Pirates will discipline Kang further, but noncompliance with the treatment program triggers suspensions.
Bill Brink: bbrink@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrinkPG.
First Published: May 1, 2018, 9:43 p.m.