PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – He was signed to be the veteran catcher to work with Henry Davis, since Endy Rodriguez is out for the year, yet Yasmani Grandal caught only a few innings in Spring Training and hasn’t played since.
The 35-year-old has plantar fasciitis and while rehabbing at AAA there is still no timeframe to call him up.
“Yeah, he’s doing well,” said Pirates GM Ben Cherington on Wednesday. “We have a schedule at least through this week and we want to see him play a good amount of volume in Triple-A because he really didn’t have a Spring Training and coming off a foot injury.”
“His biggest thing was base running and with a position player rehabbing you can never perfectly control how much base running there’s going to be, so wanted to give him enough games for him to be able to get on the bases a little bit. That’s happened a little bit now. Expect him to continue to play at least through the end of the week and we’ll revisit at that point.”
Barring a setback, he will be with the major league club soon. Currently Davis and Joey Bart are the catchers. Bart is out of options, but Davis is a part of your future. Cherington said Bart has made a really positive impression since being acquired from the Giants on April 2 and believes some players just need a fresh start. You’ll have too many catches soon, something has to give.
Cherington said they’ll have to decide then. He noted anything can happen in baseball between now and that date, but the positive is they feel like they have depth at that position.
The likely call would be Davis going down, the 24-year-old is hitting .172 with three doubles and no homers and while they have ‘full confidence’ in his defense, the offense is a struggle right now. Cherington said it’s a number of things that are hampering Davis, but he didn’t want to divulge them publicly. He said they have full confidence in the 2021 first-round pick.
“He’s got a lot of pride and we know he’s going to work hard at it and there’s a long track record of hitting there,” Cherington said. “I would bet on him being a good hitter again. He’s just working through some stuff right now that he’s going to make some adjustments on.”
That might be done in AAA soon.
Gonzo Good
Another multi-hit game for infielder Nick Gonzales and he’s now hitting .402 (leading all of AAA) with a .453 on-base percentage and 1.074 OPS through 21 games. His 11 doubles also lead AAA as do the hits and OPS. Currently Pirates second basemen have combined for TWO doubles all year and combined for nine fewer hits playing in three more games.
There are no immediate plans to bring him up. Cherington said they are not surprised by what Gonzales is doing.
"(He) has taken another step through the first month and he's made some intentional adjustments, coming from the major leagues last year and learning from that,” Cherington said of Gonzales hitting. “He was really focused on that in the offseason and Spring Training. We're seeing some good changes. So, he's proud of them. He took the experience in the major leagues and is putting them to better use to make changes to become a better player."
Part of the positives for Gonzales are cutting down on the negatives. Last year in the majors, Gonzales struck out 36 times in 115 at bats, so far this season just 16 times in 87 at bats.
If not Gonzales getting called up, infielder Liover Peguero is hitting .291 with seven doubles and 18 RBI at AAA Indianapolis. Jake Lamb is intriguing, a left-handed hitting first baseman with MLB experience, Lamb is batting .392 in AAA. Outfielder/infielder Ji Hwan Bae is also hitting .375 in nine games of a rehab assignment.