Pirates manager Clint Hurdle says that Pedro Alvarez's promotion on Monday was due primarily to the fact that Alex Presley, who had been the Bucs' hottest hitter, was recently injured.
↵↵↵"We really can't put a timetable on [how long Presley will be out] and we're really not in the position to play short," Hurdle said. "This may have been a little sooner than we originally thought [to bring Alvarez up to the major league team], but revisiting it, Pedro has made progress, he has been swinging the bat extremely well.
↵"Obviously we needed to add more offense since one of our best offensive players just been put on the DL."
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That might sound like a vote of confidence, but it actually isn't. The idea was that Alvarez was being kept in Class AAA because he had holes in his game, and he needed to fix them so that he could come back as the hulkbeast of a power hitter we all believe he can be. He put up good numbers at Class AAA Indianapolis, but the Pirates apparently aren't terribly convinced by them. So now he's in Pittsburgh merely because Alex Presley was doing so much to make the offense go, and the Pirates need to grab offense anywhere they can.
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