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A couple of injury updates on Pirates minor-leaguers:
-P- Clay Holmes has had Tommy John surgery, which typically will knock a pitcher out for a year. Last week, Holmes visited Dr. James Andrews. It's too bad that Holmes will miss a year of development, but pitchers now usually come back from Tommy John with their stuff intact, so in the grand scheme of things, this probably isn't the worst injury for him to have. As I noted before, the Pirates have done a very good job keeping their pitching prospects healthy. Holmes is the unfortunate exception.
-P- Austin Meadows (with Clint Hurdle above) has a hamstring injury and will miss a few weeks of West Virginia's regular season. Tim Williams says Meadows is already running, hitting and doing drills, so it sounds like this is mostly precautionary -- it's cold in West Virginia in April. The Pirates will hold him back in Bradenton, although it's unclear whether that means they'll have him suit up with the Marauders or just stay in camp.
