After another lackluster performance today against the San Diego Padres, Brad Lincoln was demoted to AAA Indianapolis. Lincoln made 9 starts for the Pirates, posting a 6.57 ERA and losing 4 of his starts. He recorded only 21 strikeouts in his 50.2 innings and batters hit .311 off of him.
While no one expected Lincoln to dominate at first in the majors, I don't think many people expected him to get knocked around this hard and be back in Indy. There's no doubt that he will be back, there are obviously just a lot of things he needs to work on. The Pirates may have rushed him to the bigs, but that doesn't matter now. What matters is Lincoln taking this with a positive attitude and working extra hard to become an effective major league starter.
There's a pretty decent chance that Lincoln will find his way back into the major leagues this year. If he shows fast improvement in AAA he could be back in August or might even be a September call up. I don't know if they want to extend him out that long, they may just want to shut him down when the minor league season ends and have him get some rest so he can be ready to improve more next year.
With the lack of depth the Pirates have pitching wise in their minor league system, Brad Lincoln is a crucial piece of the winning puzzle. He is going to have to turn it around and become a good major league pitcher, which I think he is easily capable of doing. His velocity was rarely at what it can be and his fastball just seemed dead at times. It was a straight fastball that was getting absolutely destroyed by the major league hitters. A few adjustments and he could have a very effective fastball that can help set up that devastating curve of his.
In other news, Brendan Donnelly was DFA'd today. This means the Pirates have 2 pitching spots to fill on their major league roster. My guess is that Daniel McCutchen will come back up to start some games while Wil Ledezma (who has been lights out in Indy all year) will come in to help the bullpen. It's also a possibility that we could see Charlie Morton could come back up, despite his lack of success in Indianapolis.
The worst part of this 2010 Pirates club has been the pitching and that's how it looks like it will continue to be for the rest of the year. We better seriously hope that guys like Rudy Owens, Bryan Morris, and Justin Wilson turn into legitimate major league pitchers or the Pirates aren't going to end this streak any time soon.
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