Is Pie for real?

Manager Buck Showalter was posed the question regarding Felix Pie this afternoon, and whether he has finally morphed from a “can’t-miss” prospect into a legitimate player.

Showalter’s response? No. Well, at least, not yet.

“It’s too small a sampling,” Showalter said of Pie, who entered Tuesday’s game hitting .286 and had an RBI double in his first at-bat. “One of things is can you count on him? There’s some unknown there. You see why people are so high on him tool-wise. You see the things that he shows, and I think for the first time in quite a while, he’s shown it fairly consistently. Now can you do it six or seven days a week for seven months? That’s a hard thing to do. It’s a tough place to protect guys so to speak, in the big leagues.

If you have a strength, it’ll show up up here. If you have a weakness, they’ll pound it. So far he’s handled everything we’ve thrown at him. I’m excited about the way he’s gone about his business. Each day passes and we get closer to the finish line, your evaluation period shrinks.”

Pie snapped an 0-for-15 skid with Tuesday’s solo homer and entered Wednesday batting .315 with five doubles, a triple, three homers and 11 RBIs in his last 29 games. But, like Showalter said, it’s a small sample.

“I’m going to wait until we get through the whole season and see where we are with it as we go forward,” Showalter said of his evaluation.