Pirates Notebook, 7/5/99

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Pirates Notebook, 7/5/99

Monday, July 05, 1999

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Williams may return early: The Pirates originally planned to leave Mike Williams on the disabled list through the three-day All-Star break to make sure his sore right shoulder was fine.

However, now they're thinking they might activate the right-hander in Minneapolis Friday when he's eligible to come off the DL.

Why the semi-rush?

"When your closer says he's 100 percent, I think you activate him," Manager Gene Lamont said yesterday.

Schourek goes four: Pete Schourek, filling in for Jose Silva as the Pirates' starter yesterday, worked four innings, allowing three hits, three walks and two runs. He was one out away from allowing one run in four innings, but David Nilsson homered with two outs in the fourth. Schourek walked the next two batters before getting Jose Valentin to ground out on his 81st pitch.

It was a decent effort by a guy who hadn't started since May 26 and who'd pitched only 111/3 innings in six relief appearances since then.

"I don't think you can ask for much more than that," Lamont said. "I was more than happy."

Short hops: The Pirates have lost eight of their past 10 games on the Fourth of July. . .Ed Sprague's pinch-hit home run in the eighth inning lifted his batting average back over .300. He slipped under .300 Saturday night for just the second time since April 28. . .Al Martin's double in the sixth inning extended his hitting streak to a career-best 13 straight games (21 for 61). . .Freddy Garcia is hitting .311 (19 for 61) over his past 23 games.