I am in Charleston this weekend to watch the Low-A West Virginia Power’s three-game set, and received a few injury updates:
**Shortstop Cole Tucker missed six straight games last week with general soreness in his shoulder.
Tucker took a week off from throwing, which gave him a chance for his shoulder strength to get back to 100%. He doesn’t expect this to be a recurring issue.
**Third baseman Jordan Luplow missed four straight games last week, but his absence was not health or discipline related.
“It was just a matter of getting some work and some reps in,” according to West Virginia Manager Brian Esposito.
This is Luplow’s first time in his career playing third base, so it’s no surprise that the Pirates gave Luplow a few days to work on his fundamentals at the new position. Luplow missed some time in Spring Training due to shoulder soreness, but Esposito said that his shoulder is healthy.
**First baseman Connor Joe’s back injury has completely healed, and he is 100% healthy for the first time since he signed with the Pirates last June. Joe had a slow start to his season – batting .200 in the month of May, but has started to pick it up in June where he’s batting .273 thus far.
**I’ll have a full report on the progress of all three players early next week.
