Pirates GM Ben Cherington Gives Vince Velasquez Update

Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington spoke on his radio show Sunday afternoon and gave us a little update on starting pitcher, Vince Velasquez.

From what Cherington said, it would seem like the Pirates may have avoided a serious injury with Velasquez, and it shouldn’t be a longer-term injury

Avoiding a major injury with Velasquez would be huge, considering the Pirates need as many arms as possible as they try to get out of this slump.

“Pretty optimistic this can be a short term thing,” said Cherington on his radio show. “We’re still getting a little more information, but we’re hopeful. He was in a really good spot and doing what he was intending to do with his pitches, so we’re excited to get him back here on the mound, hopefully, sooner rather than later. We’re going to have a more refined plan early this week with Vince.”

With Velasquez’s spot due up on Tuesday when the Pittsburgh Pirates face Colorado Rockies, Cherington gave us an answer on who may start.

“We haven’t made any formal decision on that Tuesday spot yet, but we’ve got a couple of things lined up that we could go to. I’m going to let Derek Shelton be the breaker of that news when it’s ready, but there are guys in Indy and guys here we could use. We got some options. You’re going to have games where you’re not going to have your original five, and we feel good about the guys that can give us that chance to win when situations like that arise.”