Pirates GM Ben Cherington spoke to reporters (including ) recently about the struggles a few key players have faced on offense this season in Pittsburgh Rob Deer Jersey , including outfielder . Despite the clubs decision to option the 25-year-old earlier this week, Cherington made clear that the club believes in his talent. Jack is really important to us, Cherington said, as relayed by Hiles. ..Clearly believe that the best version of our team in 2024 has Jack on it, doing the things that we know hes capable of doing. We tried to give that as much time as we could to get on track. That time to work things out came in the form of 157 plate appearances in the majors with Pittsburgh this season, where Suwinski slashed a brutal .174/.268/.297 despite being just one year removed from a breakout season where he posted a 112 wRC+ in 144 games as the clubs regular center fielder. That upside is certainly tantalizing, but Cherington indicated that the clubs decision to option him comes from a belief that Suwinski will need consistent at-bats on a daily basis that they cant afford to him at the big league level. With veteran franchise face installed at DH and taking one corner spot every day, that left just two spots in the outfield for a combination of Suwinski, , , and . Olivares and Joe have both hit fairly well to this point in the season, while Taylor is both not optionable and also an excellent defender in center field. Even with that outfield logjam complicating matters, Cherington still indicated that the club hopes that hell be able to show enough to return to the majors at some point this year, although he made clear that there is no guarantee as to when or if hell be back in the majors this year. Suwinski isnt the only potential core piece that the Pirates optioned to the minors this month, as the club also catcher just after the calendar flipped to May. Davis, 24, was the first overall pick in the 2021 draft and made his debut last season but struggled at the plate while working almost exclusively as an outfielder. Injuries to the clubs catching corps this offseason spurred Pittsburgh to return Davis to his native position behind the plate, where he looked to be below average but serviceable with the glove. That would be well worthwhile if Davis was a stud on offense, but he hit just .162/.280/.206 in 23 games prior to his demotion. Fortunately, Davis has caught fire in the weeks since then at Triple-A with an otherworldly .315/.456/.741 slash line in 15 games. That strong hot stretch earned Davis considerable praise from Cherington, who acknowledged that the youngster has been working hard since being optioned and that the club is seeing progre s both in his on-field results and in the specific goals the club set out for him when he was demoted. If Davis can reach the ceiling that made him a consensus top-50 prospect in the sport a couple of years ago, that would be a huge boost to a Pirates club that has struggled to a 24-28 start this season despite winning 11 of their first 16 games this year. Not every struggling player can be optioned to the minor leagues, of course, and that includes first baseman . The 29-year-old slugger signed a one-year deal in Pittsburgh coming off a down season in Milwaukee last year and has looked even worse through 45 games with the Pirates this season, hitting a nightmarish .175/.242/.225 thats a whopping 64% below the league average hitter in terms of wRC+. In spite of his struggles, it doesnt appear that the club doesnt plan on giving up on Tellez any time soon, and Cherington confirmed as much in comments to reporters. While the GM acknowledged that the club isnt seeing the outcomes we hoped to see out of Tellez to this point, he also made clear that Tellez is healthy and that the underlying skills that prompted the Pirates to target him, including his bat speed and strong power potential, dont seem to have changed. Even as the club intends to stick with Tellez for the time being, that doesnt mean they havent begun to lean le s heavily on him. Tellez is still a semi-regular fixture in the clubs lineup with appearances in 15 of the clubs 21 games this month, but Joe has begun to see increasing playing time at first base as a result of a strong .273/.344/.460 slash line in 45 games this season. Should the Pirates decide to move on from Tellez at some point, non-roster veteran could serve as a potential left-handed complement to Joe at first base. The 33-year-old is currently playing for the Pirates on a minor league deal in their system with a .341/.428/.500 slash line in 37 games and had some succe s in the majors as recently as 2022. Bryan Hudson Jersey