Team USA, Jay Bell, and Jordy Mercer Set for Action Tonight
By Tom Smith
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The Pittsburgh Pirates 2008 third-round draft pick Jordy Mercer
is prepared to strut his stuff for the Red, White, and Blue once again. The opening game for Mercer and Team USA is set for 8:30 tonight at Rod Carew Stadium in the IBAF World Cup. The US will play Puerto Rico.
It’s a cool honor for Mercer who got off to a terrible start this season with the Pirates Double-A ball team in Altoona. He hit .154 in the month of April, but remained diligent in his work and after hitting over 300 in May and June was promoted to Triple-A Indianapolis.
The Bucs infield prospect knocked in 48 runs with Altoona which was second in the Eastern League before his call-up. He also ripped 13 bombs. Mercer leaves the Curve with a .268 batting average, but that’s impressive considering he got off to a horrible start and hit just .154 in April. He batted .318 in May and .313 this month.
While with the Curve Mercer played daily at short. He moved around while in Indy, but was back at SS during an exhibition against Canada a few days ago. Mercer went 0-for-3.
Good Luck to Jordy Mercer, gold glover Jay Bell and of course all of Team U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! The Cup wraps up on October 15 and then the Pan Am Games begin October 18 in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico.
It’s pretty cool that former Pirates player Jay Bell is an assistant coach for Team USA. Yeh, that Jay Bell….
We can’t help but wonder how the bunting drills are going. No, seriously Bell is a shortstop with a similar defensive skill set to Bell. If he turns out to be the singles and double hitter Bell was, well it would be disappointing, but I guess we could live with it.