With Ronny Cedeno and Steve Pearce rehabbing in Indianapolis, it’s seemed for a while that the start of tomorrow’s series against the Cardinals was going to be a target for quite a bit of roster turnover. What’s interesting is that the first move appears to be that the club has optioned Pedro Ciriaco back to Indianapolis.
Honestly, I had forgotten that Ciriaco was even on the roster until sometime during yesterday’s game. He’s only appeared in one game (as a pinch-runner) since June 20th and I’m pretty sure he spent maybe ten days in the minors in between at some point. He’s a ridiculous waste of a roster space for a team that has almost no bench, but the Pirates have been stretched awfully thin of late and I suppose sometimes stuff like this happens. Still, if we’re assuming Ronny Cedeno is coming back for tomorrow’s game, I expected Chase d’Arnaud to be the one to go back to Indianapolis so that he can keep playing regularly. d’Arnaud’s pretty clearly overmatched at the big league level, both at the plate and on the field, but either he or Josh Harrison will have to keep playing until Pedro Alvarez comes back.
Of course, d’Arnaud still could go back down if Pearce is ready to return this weekend. Pearce has five extra base hits (two doubles, three homers) in 7 games and 30 plate appearances on his rehab stint. Alvarez, who’s recently heated up quite a bit with Indy, could come back fairly soon as well.
The one bit of bad news is that Jose Tabata suffered a setback during his rehab yesterday and may not be back all that soon. And of course, Neal Huntington still seem to be exploring all available options in the trade market and I’m kind of expecting that he’ll pull the trigger on an early deal if he makes one, because next week is a huge week for the Bucs.
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