Eric Young Jr. started in center field for the first time this season on Wednesday night, the result of a minor leg injury to Chris Frey and — probably more importantly — an effort to get Young ready to play multiple spots for the Rockies in the coming weeks.

“It’s just another position for him to get adapted to,” Sky Sox manager Stu Cole said. “If he gets down to where the big leagues call him and want to use him in that spot, the more positions you can play the better.”

Young played in the outfield during the Arizona Fall League, and Baseball America speculated that he would split his time between the outfield and second base this season. But that split never developed as Young had played every game at second until Wednesday.

“I came in and saw the lineup card and grabbed my outfielder glove,” Young said. “It wasn’t my first time out there.”

You can’t help but notice the timing of the move. Yes, Frey was mildly hurt. But probably more importantly, Rockies center fielder Dexter Fowler was hurt earlier this week making a difficult catch. The Rockies had Carlos Gonzalez out there the past two days, but their reluctance to give him regular time in left while Fowler was healthy is a pretty solid indicator that they are not sold on him as a regular.

The most recent update I had seen on Fowler’s condition was Jim Tracy telling the Denver Post that Fowler was walking around fine; so maybe the injury isn’t serious and this isn’t a big deal.

If the Rockies were involved in sending Young to center, I think that can only be taken as a sign that they want his services in the near future.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.