Pirates Prospect Making Good Progress Following Injury

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates have one of their better outfielder prospects making his way back from injury and on good timing as well.

Jhostynxon Garcia started his rehab assignment with Single-A Bradenton on May 1, which came two weeks after he went on the 10-day injured list with lower back tightness.

Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said on the Pirates Insider Show that Garcia's tests on his lower back issue came back positive and then when he's fully healthy, they'll have him back at Triple-A Indianapolis.

“Yeah I think with password, we probably want to see him go to Indianapolis and get a bunch of at-bats," Cherington said. "He had a tough start to the season, I think, in hindsight, he was probably dealing with something then. Didn’t feel great physically.

"This low back issue, which all the tests came back really good, just a mechanical low back issue, but you got to get past that. So he’s feeling better physically now, we’re seeing that power show up in the rehab assignment, but we’d probably like to see a good run in Triple-A before we consider anything else."

Jhostynxon Garcia's 2026 Season So Far

Garcia had a great Spring Training, serving as one of the Pirates best hitters and making good impressions on Pirates manager Don Kelly.

He slashed .405/.463/.595 for an OPS of 1.058 in 17 games in the Grapefruit League, with 15 hits in 37 at-bats, a double, two home runs, five RBI and four walks to 10 strikeouts and three stolen bases.