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AFL: Alen Hanson’s Fielding Improves As Team Loses Again

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The Scottsdale Scorpions lost again on Thursday, their seventh straight defeat. First place Mesa won 7-3 to move to 5.5 games ahead of Scottsdale, with 11 games left in the regular season. arizona_fall_league_logo

Two Pittsburgh Pirates players were in the starting lineup. Alen Hanson was at shortstop and batting lead-off, while Gift Ngoepe was his double play partner, batting ninth.

In his first at bat, Alen Hanson popped out to third base. In the third inning, with two outs and no one on base, he singled to right field. After a wild pitch got him to second base, Hanson scored the first run of the game on a single by Jarrett Parker. In the fifth inning, Hanson grounded out to first base to end the inning. In his fourth AB, Hanson grounded out to shortstop, leaving him 1-for-4 on the day.

Gift Ngoepe has really struggled at the plate in the AFL, though that hasn’t affected his fielding. Ngoepe has not made an error yet coming into Thursday’s game. In each of his first two AB’s on Thursday, he struck out. In the third inning, he went down swinging and two innings later, he was called out on strikes. In the top of the eighth inning, Ngoepe capped off his rough day at the plate with his third straight strikeout. In 32 AB’s, he has now struck out 15 times.

Both Ngoepe and Hanson were flawless in the field. For Ngoepe, he has played nine games between shortstop and second base without an error, while Hanson has played nine straight games at shortstop without a miscue. Hanson made five errors in the first four games of the year, twice committing two errors in one game.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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