It goes without saying that I’ll be paying a lot more attention to the minor league clubs both for the end of this season and next year given how much of the Pirates’ future success is tied up in those players. Last night Tony Ferrante of the excellent Penguins’ blog The Confluence was at the Indianapolis Indians game in Norfolk against the Tides. Which means he got to see both Jeff Clement’s two homers and Argenis Diaz. He e-mailed me a short write-up after the game ended:
Clement was awesome in his debut with the Bucco organization in Norfolk with the Indy Indians tonight. In his first at-bat, against a lefty, he took a 2-1 curveball on the knees out of the park to right field. In his second at-bat, he went with a fastball on the outside half of the plate well out of the park to left center. In his third at-bat, he hit a rope to center field, but it was right at the center fielder for the third out of the inning. In his fourth at-bat, he lined a full-count pitch to right field for his third hit of the night. He walked in his final at-bat.
Diaz came as advertised. He made an outstanding diving stop behind second base on a liner up the middle, but had no chance to throw the runner out. He also made a nice leaping grab of a liner over his head. At the plate, he went 1 for 5.
He mentioned that he didn’t get to see Jose Tabata, presumably because he hadn’t joined the team yet. That’s fine, because the Tribe is coming to Durham next and there’s no way I’m missing out on seeing this team play.
With Tabata up in Indy, I’m also interested to see how Pedro Alvarez fares in Altoona. He was just fine last night, going 3-for-4 and raising his slash line with the Curve to .306/.355/.534.
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