Remember the two Indian players signed by the Pirates after they won that reality show? Well, now there’s only one who can call himself a Pirate: Dinesh Patel has been released. Patel pitched sparingly in the Gulf Coast League over the past two summers. The results: 13.2 innings of relief work in which he gave up nine runs on 19 hits while striking out 11 and walking three. That ain’t gonna cut it.
His reality show-winning partner, Rinku Singh, did a bit better. He actually got to pitch two whole innings in the New York-Penn League last year, and will presumably remain in the Pirates organization a bit longer. Still, I’m not figuring that he’s much of a prospect himself, but I bet that once he’s eventually back home in India along with Patel he’ll be able to lord his longer tenure in American baseball over him. He’ll be the Kelly to Patel’s Justin, as it were.
