Remember those two guys who won the Indian reality show and ended up getting signed by the Pirates? They made their professional debuts on Saturday:
Pittsburgh Pirates farmhands Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel became the first players from India to appear in organized baseball when each pitched an inning for Bradenton of the Gulf Coast League on Saturday.
Singh allowed one run on two hits and struck out one, throwing 13 of 20 pitches for strikes during the seventh inning of the Pirates’ 4-2 loss to the Yankees. Patel threw a scoreless eighth, throwing seven of nine pitches for strikes while striking out one.
Bad sign: the premise of that reality show was to find a guy who could throw 90 m.p.h. On Saturday, however, Singh’s fastball topped out at 83 miles per hour and Patel’s at 84. Unless Patel can figure out how to throw a knuckleball and unless “Rinku Singh” is Hindi for “Jamie Moyer,” that ain’t gonna cut it.
But not everyone is as pessimistic as I am. Indeed, Singh is pretty optimistic: “Next time i promising I pitching good stuff.”
