The Pirates were pretty busy for a Friday afternoon in August today; they sent Daniel McCutchen back down to Triple-A and brought Jordy Mercer back from paternity leave (this brings the roster back to 13 position players and 12 pitchers, which makes sense given that the Pirates were both off yesterday and will be off again next Thursday), they sent Yamaico Navarro down to Triple-A for Jeff Clement, and they claimed Hisanori Takahashi off of waivers. Clement will presumably be with the club in Pittsburgh tonight and they’ll have to make another move when Takashi gets into town whenever that may be.
There were a lot of Pirate fans clamoring for Clement to get called up, but my interest in him has waned quite a bit since the Pirate offense came to life in June. The reality is that Clement is 28 and he’s not even matching his Triple-A numbers from 2003. It’s a cool story that he’s come back from so many injuries to have a big league career again, but I don’t think he’s any more likely to help the Pirate offense right now than Yamaico Navarro was. Takahashi, meanwhile, seems like a decent claim. He’s a lefty, which the Pirates need in the bullpen if they’re not planning on calling Justin Wilson up (which … next topic), and he had a 4.1 K/BB ratio before being demoted by the Angels for his 4.93 ERA. At the very least, that K/BB ratio may indicate some hidden value, though he does tend to give up a bunch of homers and that makes him like the lefty the Pirates already have in the bullpen in Tony Watson. I don’t know who the Pirates will remove for Takahashi, but I do know that if it’s not Chad Qualls that I’ll be pretty upset.
The Pirates are back at PNC tonight to play the Brewers. Wandy Rodriguez looks to make his first good start as a Pirate. Mike Fiers goes for the Brewers. He’s given up 12 runs in seven innings over his last two starts. First pitch is at 7:05.
