Sunday, September 12, 2010

Sunday Scraps

-- JR is shaking 'em up today. John Bowker is starting at first, Alex Presley in right, and Lastings Milledge in left. We expect to see a little more of this kinda order in September; he has a lot of guys that need at-bats. The 40-man roster decisions are just around the corner.

-- Jose Tabata's first-inning single last night was his 100th hit. He and Neil Walker are the first Pirates rookies to have 100 hits in the same season since Jose Guillen and Tony Womack did it in 1997.

-- Ronny Cedeno got a vote of confidence from JR, who told the beat guys that he expects RC to be the regular SS in 2011. Even so, you'd think he'd give Pedro Ciriaco and Argenis Diaz a couple of starts just to evaluate them for next season.

-- Guy Cipriano of Baseball America has a piece on the challenges of running a short-season ballclub like the State College Spikes in the face of late draft dates and even later signings, including filling the rosters - and the ballyards.

-- The Kansas City Royals have signed the former Miami Dolphins and West Virginia QB Pat White to a minor league contract.

He was quite a ballplayer in high school. An outfielder at Daphne (Ala.) HS, the 24 year old White was drafted in the fourth round by the Anaheim Angels in 2004, but instead accepted a football scholarship from West Virginia.

A lefty, White hit .487 his senior season in high school with a .974 slugging percentage and 28 stolen bases. He was named second-team High School All-American by Baseball America.

While at WVU, he was selected by the Angels again in the 26th round in 2007, by the Cincinnati Reds in the 49th round in 2008 and by the New York Yankees in the 48th round in 2009.

It's the kind of low-risk, high-reward move a team like, oh, the Pirates, should have considered.

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