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    Wednesday, August 18, 2004

    Van Benschoten. Tonight.

    The Pirates have recalled their top hitting prospect, and it is expected that he will be in the lineup tonight. That's right, John Van Benschoten is scheduled to get the start on the mound tonight for the Bucs. Previously I had mentioned that Van Benschoten would probably make his Pirates debut this Friday. Unfortunately, Kip Wells has discomfort in his elbow ('Mr. Littlefield, I've got Dr. Jobe holding on line 1.') so the Pirates have moved him back to Friday and called up Van Benschoten to pitch tonight. I have a couple of thoughts on the matter...

    Ever since the Pirates drafted him, I felt it was a mistake not to give Van Benschoten a chance to develop as a hitter. For starters, the Pirates are fairly stacked with pitching prospects throughtout the system and have virtually no hitting prospects of note. Second, young pitchers are infamously unpredictable due to the chance of catastrophic injury, therefore I felt it was foolish to invest so much in him and then shut him off from hitting completely. Anyway, what's done is done, and he's turned into a fine pitching prospect nonetheless. His Nashville numbers are pretty poor, and I wish that they had given someone else this start, but I'll be watching and
    hoping that I get to see another glimpse of the Pirates future tonight.

    The other bit of news is that Kip Wells has a bum elbow. He says he'll be ok for his start on Friday, but you really can't trust anything a player says about his own health. I haven't heard anything about the Pirates scheduling an MRI, but it would not surprise me to hear the Pirates announce on Thursday that Wells won't make the start and will have an MRI over the
    weekend. Any combination of the words elbow, shoulder, stiffness, and tightness is very bad news when discussing a pitcher.

    posted by bkopec @ 3:56 PM   2 comments








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