Links and The Most Dominant Hitter in Japan is a Pirate

Sandlot Swashbucklers is a new Pirates Minor League Blog headed up by Cory from The Lumber Company and Pittsburgh Pirates Roundtable. The first article is on Neil Walker.

Speaking of the Roundtable, I missed linking to edition 17 which was available earlier in the week.

The Post Gazette has the Pirates Notebook up covering a slew of topics including:

• Torres' workload
• Nady Bayless and McCutchen missing training time
• Castillo playing more 3B, this time with the MLB squad sharing time with Hernandez
• Gerut should be fine to start the season according to team doctors
• Penguins missed batting practice
• Six pitchers threw BP to live hitters.

It looks as if Freddy Sanchez has become one of the most fabled dominant hitters in Japanese history. Well maybe not most fabled nor most dominant but it sounds like it according to this except:

Because Sanchez made contact with one of the six pitches he saw from Kuwata, he was peppered with 10 minutes of questioning by the Japanese media. "How were you able to get your bat on the ball?" one reporter asked in English.

Apparently Freddy is the first player to ever make contact against Kuwata. OK, the first to do it in Florida.

Dejan is also reporting on Kolb wanting a position in the pen, even if it isn't a closer position.

Check back later for more links and comments, the Trib seems to be having some server issues.