My apologies for the sporadic updates this weekend – I'm in South Carolina and am having some trouble with internet that hopefully will be resolved today. I got to listen to snippets of the Bucs' 10-2 win over the Nationals while driving through both Pittsburgh and Washington on Sunday. It's nice to see a 16-hit outburst after all the offensive troubles the Bucs have had, as the Pirates got three hits each from Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker and Lyle Overbay. Kevin Correia pitched well, too.
I'm not one to freak out much about All-Star selections. Joel Hanrahan was certainly a deserving pick. Correia will probably be joining him, and while Correia has certainly performed much better than I expected this year, he wouldn't be receiving any consideration if it weren't for his win totals. The Andrew McCutchen snub is ridiculous, obviously; between his hitting and his fine defense this year, he's been among the most valuable players in the league. Of course, it isn't as if the voters and the other folks who set the rosters usually get things right, so it really isn't worth flipping out over.
Also, the Pirates signed another Latin American player to a big bonus after the news about Harold Ramirez broke a couple days ago. This time it's Venezuelan outfielder Elvis Escobar, who's related to a number of ballplayers, including Kelvim Escobar. He'll get $570,000. BA describes him as having "advanced baseball instincts and feel for hitting," which probably isn't surprising given his pedigree, so he'll probably be the GCL sooner rather than later, hopefully next year.