Garrett Jones has been on a tear lately.  In fact, he was long overdue to contribute as major leaguer.  Those wacky Pirates front office people will make you think they traded Nate McLouth to get Jones into the lineup.  Don’t buy it.  Had that been the case they would have never asked for Lastings Milledge when they peddled Nyjer Morgan off to the Nationals.  Either way, Jones has had an opportunity to get some AB’s with the Pirates and has more than made the most of his chances.

The 6’4″, 245 lb. outfielder turned 28 on June 21.  Kind of old for a rookie prospect.  Through Sunday, Jones was batting .286 with 7 HR and 9 RBI.  What’s impressive about those numbers is that he has only had 56 at-bats so far.  Fourteen games and homer in every-other-game.  Pretty impressive.

Jones was seemingly a lifetime member of the Minnesota Twins farm system.  He racked up over 1,000 minor league games while in that system.  The Pirates could not let Jones sit in Indianapolis too long as he was tearing the cover off of the ball.

Jones’ emergence as a powerhitter has me scared of what the front office must be thinking.  Either they are going to play out his hot run and send him back to Indy, or they are going to trade Milledge or Moss because there isn’t room for him in the outfield.  My prediction would be the earlier.  Jones will be sent back down once he cools off.

The run that Garrett Jones has been on lately has been fun to watch.  His two homers against San Francisco were the only two runs the Pirates needed for a win, and that was in 14 innings.  More impressively, one of the homers was off of Tim Lincecum and the other was a 14th inning game-winning shot. 

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