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The Boston Celtics have their “Big Three” and for most of this season, so have the Portland Sea Dogs.
The Sea Dogs’ outfield had been arguably the best or most productive to come up through Boston’s farm system since the early 1970’s home-grown class featuring Jim Rice, Fred Lynn and Dwight Evans.
While Boston slugger David Ortiz’s rehabilitation tour through Pawtucket and Portland has dominated news from the minor league baseball circuit, it’s easy to overlook the season of Portland’s outfielders. Boston’s talent evaluators haven’t, however, and neither have Eastern League officials.
Left fielder Corsaletti was promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket right after the Eastern League All-Star game for which he, center fielder Bubba Bell and right fielder Zach Daeges were all selected to play.
“I guess we’re kind of like the team’s Three Musketeers,” said Corsaletti, a 25-year-old from Tallahassee, Fla. “We have a pretty close-knit relationship and push each other a lot.”
Besides all being outfielders just one year apart in age, they share other not-so common traits, the most uncommon of which is being a righthanded thrower and lefthanded batter.
“It’s kind of unique, but especially helpful, too, that we’re all lefties who hit close together in the lineup,” added Corsaletti, who batted third. “We’ll notice stuff like how they pitch us and can help each other with tips and advice and stuff.”
Bell, who missed five games before being placed on the disabled list Monday, and Daeges still bat leadoff and fifth, respectively.
Before his promotion, Corsaletti was hitting .311 with 12 home runs, 50 RBIs, 60 runs and seven steals in 77 games.
Daeges has taken over Corsaletti’s spot atop Portland’s hitting chart with a .296 average, three homers, 33 RBIs and 39 runs in 70 games. Bell is third at .286 (13 homers, 49 RBIs, 50 runs) over 78 games.
Bell is the unquestioned smart aleck of the trio.
“I keep telling him there’s nothing wrong with having sole possession of second place in the home run race,” said Bell. “But I think it’s funny I have 13 home runs and Jeff has more stolen bases than I do even though I’m batting leadoff.”
For a short time, Bell and Corsaletti had bragging rights over Daeges when they were both All-Star picks and Daeges was not, but Daeges was added five days before the game as a replacement for a player called up to Triple-A.
Bell is well aware of the special nature of Portland’s outfield for much of this season.
“We were looking at that the other day,” Bell said. “There was a pitching change in Trenton and they both came over to me. I was looking around saying how we have such a good, athletic outfield and we’re all lefty hitting and righty throwing, and we said man, we’ve got a big league outfield here.”
Bell stops well short of comparing the group to that of Rice, Lynn and Evans.
“That was an awesome outfield. If we can be half as good as those guys, I’d be psyched because those guys are all All-Star and Hall of Fame-type players,” said Bell, who got some tutelage from Evans in spring training this season.
“He’s great,” the Houston native added. “I spent a whole lot of time with Evans talking about staying in the middle part of the field when it comes to my swing and not thinking I always have to try to do more and pull it all the time.”
Daeges has concentrated on his fielding and with four errors this year, his concentration is paying off, but he’d also like to hit with more power.
“I think I’ve always kind of hit for average first,” said the Omaha, Neb., native. “I’m kind of a gap-to-gap power guy who hits quite a few doubles. I haven’t really shown home run power yet this year, but I definitely think I’m an RBI guy.”
Before the season, Corsaletti’s top goal was to jump to Triple-A. Now that he’s there, he hopes to lead the way.
“We think we’re a great outfield and we take pride in it. We try to help each other and push each other,” he said. “We all want to be up with the big league team, but you can’t think too much about that. You just have to think about doing the best you can every at-bat and every game and letting everything else take care of itself.”
aneff@bangordailynews.net
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