Triple-A Round-Up: Tony Sanchez and His Broken Toe Will Never Let Us Down; Joey Votto Goes 0-for-3

The Pittsburgh Pirates 2009 first round pick Tony Sanchez has a broken big toe.  His Triple-A Indianapolis Indians are getting prepared to begin International League postseason play at home against the Charlotte Knights tomorrow night.

We found out about the toe by reading Nancy’s recap at Pirates Prospects.  The Indians had a bit of fun in their final against Joey Votto and the Louisville Bats.  Here is some of the fun:

Jeff Larish played eight positions and would have made it nine by catching, but rain stopped the game.  Larish did pick up the save.

If you’ve ever seen reliever Jumbo Diaz the man is a beast, he is probably around 325 pounds–maybe bigger.  Diaz actually swung a bat yesterday and his hit caused Joey Votto some pain.  Diaz reached second base on a throwing error by the Reds star first baseman.  Votto is on a rehab assignment from the Cincinnati Reds, and went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts for Louisville.

Diaz then got a huge jump and stole third base without even a throw.  Diaz would score on a single by Chase d’Arnaud which set the final score at 2-0.

But the bad news is that Sanchez has a broken left toe from hitting a foul ball off his foot a few days ago.  The guy doesn’t seem to be able to catch a break.  We sent him the tweet above last night and from his reply it appears that he is going to be ready to go sometime this week.

Indianapolis stacked up 89 wins to win the West Division by 14 games over the Columbus Clippers.   The Tribe will face Charlotte who had 83 wins.  Charlotte is a Chicago White Sox affiliate.

The other best-of-five first round series will pit the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, who won 84 games to win the North Division, against the wild-card Pawtucket Red Sox who got into the playoffs with 79 wins.

Nancy Zinni’s Indy-Louisville recap