{"id":659409,"date":"2026-05-22T23:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/659409\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T23:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:54:12","slug":"pirates-call-up-red-hot-prospect-esmerlyn-valdez-start-him-in-right-field-at-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/659409\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates call up red-hot prospect Esmerlyn Valdez, start him in right field at Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TORONTO (AP) \u2014 The <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/mlb\/teams\/pittsburgh\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:Pittsburgh Pirates;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Pittsburgh Pirates&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> recalled prospect Esmerlyn Valdez from Triple-A Indianapolis after a recent hot streak and had him in the lineup in right field Friday night for their game at Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>Valdez, 22, hit five home runs in the last five games and was batting .355 with seven extra-base hits, 10 RBIs, a .903 slugging percentage and 1.315 OPS in his last eight.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Valdez hit .253 with 10 homers, 10 doubles and 29 RBIs in 46 games with Indianapolis this season. He also has 33 walks.<\/p>\n<p>The right-handed hitter is the organization&#8217;s No. 9 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline. He led Pittsburgh\u2019s minor league system with 26 home runs last season and represented the club at the All-Star Futures Game.<\/p>\n<p>Valdez was signed by Pittsburgh as a nondrafted free agent on Jan. 15, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Pittsburgh optioned outfielder Billy Cook to Indianapolis following Thursday\u2019s game at <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/mlb\/teams\/st-louis\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:St. Louis;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;St. Louis&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">St. Louis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP MLB: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/apnews.com\/MLB;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;https&quot;}\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/apnews.com\/MLB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO (AP) \u2014 The Pittsburgh Pirates recalled prospect Esmerlyn Valdez from Triple-A Indianapolis after a recent hot streak&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[233462,283991,2653,363,151450,2240,11258,99,7645],"class_list":["post-659409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-esmerlyn-valdez","tag-hot-streak","tag-indianapolis","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-pipeline","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-prospect","tag-sports","tag-st-louis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}