The 29-year-old right-hander started up a rehab assignment with short-season West Virginia on June 18. He made two appearances but has not pitched since according to his MiLB.com game log, suggesting there was a setback in his recovery from knee surgery.

Maurer was assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis at the conclusion of spring training after failing to crack the Pirates' Opening Day roster. The historically brittle reliever only made six appearances for Indianapolis before succumbing to another setback on the health front, but he looks to be on the mend now. Expect him to make another appearance or two with the Pirates' lower-level affiliates before reporting back to Indianapolis.

Maurer finished spring with a 3.18 ERA, 1.41 WHIP and 3:3 K:BB across 5.1 innings. The right-hander owns an unsightly 6.95 ERA in 90.2 innings over the past two seasons, so he doesn't figure to make an impact at the big-league level in 2019.

The appearance will mark Maurer's first since Feb. 26 after a knee injury sidelined him for more than two weeks. Since Maurer has typically been deployed as a one-inning reliever for much of his career, the missed time shouldn't impact his availability for Opening Day. It could prove more costly to his chances of breaking camp with the big club, however, given that he's missed out on some opportunities to build his case for a bullpen job.