Goes three-for-three against the Giants last night in an 8-2 Bucs victory over San Francisco. Pedro smashed a two run homer that didn’t make the Allegheny, but was probably 440 feet out. He also had a couple of singles one an RBI single. His average is up to .216, which doesn’t sound great, but he was hovering around .200 a week and a half ago. Hitting the ball extremely well. Playing some awesome third also. Made a beautiful stop and throw last night on a hard hit ground ball to his left. He has a cannon for an arm. El Toro now has 14 homers and 37 RBis. Starting to put together a monster season. The first pick of the draft in 2011, the Pirates pick, Gerritt Cole from UCLA got his first start last night and won for the Pirates. Man is he impressive. Brings his fastball 97-98 and has fantastic stuff. Pirates have a couple of injuries with their starters, so Cole is a welcome addition. Pirates now 38-26, four back of the NL Central leading Cards.
Dave Price is looking very good in bullpen sessions, will pitch a simulated game this weekend, and make a minor league appearance. He is expected to be back in late June or early July. Rays manager Joe Maddon says Dave can get three or four starts in before the All-Star break, so it’ll be sooner rather than later. Rays in a heated series with the hated BoSox. Boston pitcher John Lackey hit Rays right fielder Matt Joyce in the back Monday Night and a major brawl almost ensured. Red Sox won 10-8 in 14 innings in a war. Rays won 8-3 last night. Rays four back of Sox, and play them again tonight in Tampa. Pirates host Giants again, but there may be some bad weather heading into Pittsburgh, so it’s a possible postponement.
Sonny pitched last night for the Sacramento River Cats and gave up two runs on six hits with a walk and six K’s in six innings. Watched his first five innings. Sonny’s got great stuff. They hit a two run shot off him. He took the loss and dropped to 6-4, but still has a 2.50 ERA. Sam Selman took the loss Monday Night for the Wilmington Blue Rocks. Didn’t have his best outing, but had very poor defense behind him. Still believe in Sam a lot.
Anthony Gomez playing well for the Greensboro Grasshoppers, the (Advanced Class A ball for the Florida Marlins, hitting .286 and playing second. Curt Casali hitting .303 for the Charlotte Stone Crabs, the Rays Advances Class A team. Jason Esposito hitting .225 for the Frederick Keys of the Baltimore Orioles organization. Jason is an outstanding player–both with the bat and with the glove at third–and he’ll get it together. And Aaron “Westy” Westlake hitting .269 with decent power numbers for the Lakeland Flying Tigers, Detroit’s advanced Class A club. Aaron is on the DL right now.
Will keep an eye on our guys who are starting their pro careers: Yaz, Zo, Connor Harrell, Tony and Spence Navin, and let you know what’s going on with them.
Picked Luke Donald in the Open. Hope Brandt can surprise. It’s a shorter course and there’s been a lot of rain. Bad weather possible tomorrow, hopefully not.
Heat were pathetic last night and the Spurs fantastic. Spurs may get this done in San Antonio with two more there and them leading series 2-1. Heat are going to have to do some soul searching and figure out if they really want to win a title. They just forget they were playing an NBA finals game last night. The Spurts didn’t. I couldn’t watch it in the second half it was so bad. Watched Sonny and the Rays postgame.
