-P- In a sad bit of news, the Braves have released Craig Wilson. Wilson has just terrible for the Braves, hitting .172/.304/.259 in 24 games. He's good enough and young enough that some team in need of offense will probably pick up his contract, but given the way he fell apart down the stretch last year, it's pretty likely that the Wilson who hit 29 homers in 2004 is gone for good. Wilson is less than three years older than me; it's weird to think that his best days are already behind him. Too bad so many of them were spent rotting on the Pirates' bench.
-P- As Bucdaddy pointed out in the comments yesterday, Mike Gonzalez is on the DL with left elbow trouble. That doesn't sound good. Now seems like a good time to check in on the trade:
Brent Lillibridge Hitting a not-very-interesting .269/.359/.393 at Class AA Mississippi. He's far too young to write off, but if he keeps this up, he'll be Bobby Hill with better defense, and he'll prompt Nate Silver to tweak PECOTA in the offseason.
Adam LaRoche Had an absolutely awful start, but, as Pat points out, he now has an .881 OPS in May.
Jamie Romak Showing power and patience and Class A+ Lynchburg, but needs to make better contact.
-P- Tike Redman has made it all the way back... to the minor leagues. He'd been playing with the independent-league York Revolution, but the Orioles just signed him and sent him to Class AAA Norfolk.
-P- Humberto Cota is killing the ball at Class AAA Indianapolis, but the Pirates don't care to bring him back anytime soon, thus adding evidence to support the rampant speculation that Cota's injury was fake to begin with. Not that I have any problem with that; AAA is where Cota belongs, and the Pirates have no use for him right now.