{"id":254141,"date":"2026-07-28T23:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254141\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T23:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:22:15","slug":"esmerlyn-valdez-returns-to-pittsburgh-pirates-lineup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254141\/","title":{"rendered":"Esmerlyn Valdez returns to Pittsburgh Pirates lineup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rookie Esmerlyn Valdez returns to Pirates&#8217; lineup a night after being hit on the left hand<\/p>\n<p>PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"0\">Pittsburgh Pirates rookie slugger Esmerlyn Valdez was back in the lineup against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night, a day after getting hit in the hand by a pitch.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"1\">Valdez was forced from <a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wtae.com\/article\/pittsburgh-pirates-rally-over-arizona-diamondbacks\/73280382\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Monday night&#8217;s game<\/a> after being hit on the left hand by a fastball from Arizona starter Merrill Kelly. X-rays and other tests showed only a bruise, not broken bones.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"3\">Valdez, a 22-year-old right fielder, is off to an outstanding start to his career. He is hitting .290 with 14 home runs and 36 RBIs in 38 games to go with a 1.008 OPS.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"5\">\u201cI was afraid something was wrong and I got scared a little bit,\u201d Valdez said. \u201cThat was the first time the ball hit me there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rookie Esmerlyn Valdez returns to Pirates&#8217; lineup a night after being hit on the left hand PITTSBURGH (AP)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[14708,73,75,74,10997],"class_list":["post-254141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-esmerlyn-valdez","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}