The Pirates have promoted shortstop Gift Ngoepe and optioned reliever Dovydas Neverauskas to Class AAA Indianapolis.
The 27-year-old Ngoepe (pronounced n-GO-pay) is the first African-born player in Major League Baseball history. He became the first black South African to sign with a major league team when the Pirates gave him a $15,000 bonus in 2008 after seeing him play at an academy in Italy. Ngoepe, whose original first name Mpho means "gift" in the Sotho language, was born in Pietersburgh, South Africa, and grew up in Randburg, South Africa, with his mother, Maureen, and younger brother, Victor, who now plays for the Pirates' Gulf Coast League team.
Ngoepe has been the best defensive infielder in the Pirates' system for a while. He has smooth actions, a strong arm and good hands; Josh Bell once said that while he rarely sees the plays Ngoepe makes because he is running to first base to field the throw, he can tell by the crowd's reaction how good the play was.
Offense has held Ngoepe back. In parts of three seasons at Class AAA Indianapolis, he has a .295 OBP and 167 strikeouts in 510 plate appearances. After switch-hitting for years, he gave it up to focus on hitting right-handed. This spring, an improved approach at the plate paid off.
"Mostly, I'm looking middle-away and trying to drive the ball to the right side of the field," Ngoepe said during spring training. "One-hopper to the second baseman kind of mentality."
Ngoepe began this season 9 for 23 with four extra-base hits but has since cooled off. He is hitting .241/.308/.379.
"I believe this is a man, as I told him, I said you can either be a guy that's going to get called up when people get hurt, or you can go down, you can put a game plan together on offense and you can come up and play another 10 years in the big leagues," manager Clint Hurdle said in spring training. "That's really in your control."
The Pirates have struggled defensively this season. On Tuesday, Alen Hanson became the third different second baseman in the span of two series to commit a crucial error.
