Pirates demote Jose Tabata, recall Gorkys Hernandez
A Jose Tabata demotion has been pretty unavoidable for some time now, but it's officially happening today with Tabata going down to Indianapolis to get back on track and Gorkys Hernandez being recalled to take his place for now. With Alex Presley and Drew Sutton both on hot streaks and Gorkys having a very nice June in Indianapolis (he hit .293/.405/.402) while Starling Marte beats down the door, it's just time to do something with Tabata other than let him stink it up in Pittsburgh.
There will probably be some consternation over whether calling up Hernandez over Marte is the right move and I get that with the way that Marte is hitting right now, but I'm guessing that Hernandez will be spending most of his time on the bench while the Pirates ride out Presley and Sutton's hot streaks and that this has more to do with Tabata needing to be sent away than it does with the team thinking that Hernandez is more deserving of a call-up than Marte right now. We're going to see Starling Marte and we're probably going to see him soon. Now is just not the time.
Meanwhile, Eric Fryer sits around in the clubhouse, every bit as surprised as everyone else that he's still on the team.
I'll be really interested to see how Tabata responds to this. His behavior is tough to figure out, and I hope it's just immaturity and that this gives him some reason to grow up a bit.
Agreed on Marte; there's no reason to call him up so he can gather spider webs in the corner of the dugout for a couple weeks a la Jordy Mercer.
