Rudy Owens - close to ready?

The Pirates did some interesting things the other day. Joe Biemel is back and Moskos was sent down. Pearce hit a homer at AAA, but overall the most interesting things for me was Rudy Owens.

Owens has had a tough year with higher walks and lower strikeouts. This has lead to a lot of hits, and a lot of runs. He still gets ground balls, but is just getting hit a lot. However, a corner may have been turned. His last outing saw him get 8 strikeouts, his best result of the year. So, I was anxiously waiting this game. He did not disappoint. He struck out 7, and walked only 1. He also only gave up 5 hits, a lower number than last game.

The month of June has already seen Rudy's highest strike out total of any month. He probably has at least one more start left too. It would be nice to see Rudy put in a few good starts so that perhaps he could get the call up in September. We need Rudy to break camp with us next year as one way or another we will probably be without Maholm.