Smoaklahoma.

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Chris Davis played 46 AA games in 2008, and after 186 Frisco
at-bats (.333/.376/.618) triggered a promotion to AAA.

 

Justin Smoak has played 50 AA games in 2009, and after 183 Frisco
at-bats (.328/.449/.481) has triggered a promotion to AAA, according to
multiple local and national reports this morning.

 

Davis needed 31 AAA games (111
at-bats) to prove he was ready for Arlington.

 

Smoak’s Frisco OPS (.930) wasn’t quite as gaudy as Davis’s
(.994), but given the dramatic difference in base-reaching, a skill that the
current Rangers offense craves far more than slug, I’m guessing Smoak won’t
need 111 Oklahoma City at-bats before the decision is made that it’s time to
fit him for the big league uniform that he modeled 10 and a half months ago at
the press conference announcing his signing with the Rangers as their
first-round draft pick.

 

The RedHawks travel home from Iowa today to host the Omaha Royals.  In uniform will be Josh Hamilton, as he
continues his rehab work en route to a return to the Rangers lineup.

 

Smoak will be Hamilton’s teammate tonight, and while the
type of fine-tuning he’ll be doing as a RedHawk isn’t the same as Hamilton’s,
his timetable to get to Arlington, one way or another, and join Hamilton in the
Texas lineup, just sped up a bit. 

 

 

You can read more from Jamey
Newberg at www.NewbergReport.com.