Pirates promote Jose Tabata, option Wilfredo Boscan

The Pirates have announced that they've promoted Jose Tabata to the bigs and optioned Wilfredo Boscan back to Indianapolis. To clear space for Tabata on the 40-man roster, they've moved infielder Justin Sellers to the 60-day disabled list.

Neal Huntington's recent comments about Tabata suggested the Pirates had very little interest in him except as a trade piece, but at some point, a .422 Triple-A OBP becomes very hard to ignore, especially when Corey Hart has hit so little and you need to call up a position player. The Pirates' bench was short after they promoted Boscan to provide relief help, and they aren't allowed to promote Steve Lombardozzi so soon after optioning him. Good for Tabata for putting up big numbers after being sent down, and hey, if this stint in the big leagues doesn't work out, the Pirates can probably just sneak him through waivers yet again.

Boscan, unfortunately, departs without having been able to make his big-league debut, but at least he'll have collected a couple days of big-league salary, and now he's on the 40-man, which is good for him. He'll presumably return to the Indianapolis rotation.