The Florida State League announced their All-Star selections today. Right fielder Josh Bell and left-handed pitcher Orlando Castro will represent the Bradenton Marauders in the game. Earlier in the day, the South Atlantic League chose catcher Reese McGuire and second baseman Erich Weiss for their All-Star game.
Bell has a .308/.354/.466 slash line through 58 games. He leads the Marauders in hits, doubles, triples, homers, RBIs, total bases and OPS. Bell is tenth in the FSL in OPS and tied for sixth in RBIs. He was an All-Star in the South Atlantic League last season.
Castro has a 2.77 ERA through 61.2 innings this season. He has walked just eight batters and struck out 45, while holding hitters to a .223 BAA and posting a 1.42 GO/AO ratio. In the month of May, he was even better, with a 2.36 ERA and .185 BAA. Just like Bell, he was also named to the SAL All-Star team last season.
The two Pittsburgh Pirates farmhands will be playing in front of their home fans. The game takes place at McKechnie Field in Bradenton on June 14th.
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball.
When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.
I’m thinking of going to that game, hav’nt decided yet if I want to see all three games at tampa or skip one and go to the all star game. Depends on the money situation at the time.