Altoona Curve

Player movement comes with the territory for Curve

By Jarrod Prugar

For the Mirror

For the Altoona Curve, the amount of guys coming and going has been much like a turnstile this year.

By no means is that a bad thing as the Curve have had many players deserving of their promotions, whether it be straight to Pittsburgh like Drew Maggi or to Indianapolis like Kyle Nicolas and many others.

In the month of June, there have been 23 transactions. Those include Major League rehab stints, additions and recalls from the development list as well as the injured list, plus the regular promotions.

The timing for those promotions can be less than ideal from a team perspective, while always being good for the individual much like Henry Davis' promotion that came as Altoona's battling to earn a playoff spot to end the first half of the season.

Yet that's the nature of the beast and still the promotions add a different type of complexity when they get to their new destination and start to settle in.

"That's the natural process and part of the process with minor league baseball promotions means you've done a good thing," Curve manager Callix Crabbe said. "I think you celebrate those promotions. And you allow time to let the new players settle into the clubhouse."

Getting settled isn't always easy for guys and with Altoona being quite a few hours from High-A Greensboro, the travel logistics can be quite difficult to handle especially if the team is on the road.

Solometo joined the Curve on their road trip in Somerset, NY while the Grasshoppers were on the road as well creating even more challenges.

"It was a little bit taxing. I had to get fly I flew out the next day and then I flew back to Greensboro on Sunday," Solometo said. "Once you get settled in after that first day of me getting to Somerset, it was kind of exciting. There's a lot going on and I was just doing everything I could to try and settle myself down and get ready for my Saturday start that week."

For Solometo and many of the recent promotions, they've been able to do this with fellow teammates that's made this journey both special and easier.

It's just been cool," Solometo said. "With Braxton (Ashcraft) and calling up Tsung-Che Chenga, seeing I'm just sharing the field with them again getting used to this new clubhouse and then having friends from the old squad come, it makes it a lot easier to get adjusted here and it just makes everything better and I love when my friends have success."

Now that they're all settled the focus can be solely on baseball and doing well enough to earn that next promotion.