PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) - The Pittsburgh Pirates recalled Infielder Kevin Kramer prior to the game Sunday afternoon against the Brewers and optioned relief pitcher Montana Durapau back to Indianapolis.
Kramer has continued to impress and improve down at Triple-A Indianapolis despite seeing a few other players get the call up to Pittsburgh this season before him.
"He continues to roll his sleeves up and go to work," said Manager Clint Hurdle. "His versatilitiy is probably a high point in his career, he's played all over the field at Indianapolis. He's been giving some good professional at-bats and he keeps showing up, a lot of people have gone in front of him and he's kept his spirit in the fight."
Kramer has made himself a pretty versatile player with Indianapolis this season, playing whereever they need him to go and is ready to contribute for the Pirates whenever they call on him to get in the game.
"I've played left, right, third, short, second and it's kind of cool going out to the outfield and kind of getting some reps out there to see how it is," said Kramer. "I'm comfortable pretty much wherever they want me to go and at this point it's about coming up here and being ready for whenever if an opportunity presents itself."
Cole Tucker, Bryan Reynolds and Jose Osuna have rejoined the Pirates this season before Kramer and Kevin discusses what it's like to see others get the call and how he just goes out and works hard to impress and get the call to join the Pirates as well.
"It's just part of the job, it's all you can really do is go out there and perform and control what you need to do everyday to get ready," said Kramer. "You always want to see guys go to the big leagues, it's the best place in the world to play baseball. It's nothing personal, you want guys to go up and have success and never come back down. For a lot of the guys that's not the case, the whole coming back down thing, but for me it's just getting it back to going about my business and doing what I need to do to perform and getting my work in and I feel like if I'm putting in the right kind of work every single day and going about it the right way with a good attitude than I'll be where I want to be eventually."
Kramer also discusses the differences between joining this team now in a division race than in September, how much the players in Indianapolis pay attention to what's going on in Pittsburgh, whether he is surprised or not about Kevin Newman's year so far and more.