SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – There wasn’t much Pirates related action in tonight’s AFL game. Austin Meadows and Reese McGuire were both out of the lineup, and Tyler Eppler was the only pitcher scheduled to throw. That made it a night to get some interviews transcribed, some videos and photos uploaded, and a quick report on Eppler.
The results for Eppler were a bit misleading. He came in to close out the fourth inning, taking over with two outs and runners at the corners. He got a hard ground ball and a nice stop from the second baseman to get out of the inning, as seen in the video below.
With runners at the corners and two outs in the 4th, @TylerEppler36 comes on and gets the 3rd out. #AFL #Pirates pic.twitter.com/6s4gZZPhbW
— Tim Williams (@TimWilliamsP2) November 11, 2015
The next inning didn’t go well. Eppler started the frame giving up a soft line drive single to center field. The next batter bunted for a hit, putting runners at first and second. He almost caught a break with a bouncer up the middle, but he deflected the ball. The shortstop could have had a play on it, but went to step on the bag before he had the ball, and saw it go right by him. The result was a run scored and runners at the corners, rather than two outs and a runner at third.
Eppler got a caught stealing against the next batter, then hit that batter to put runners back at the corners. A fly out might have ended the inning if he would have gotten the earlier double play, but it ended up going for the second out, and bringing in the second run of the inning. He then gave up a hard hit double to the left field wall, scoring the third run of the inning, before getting out of the frame.
It was a cold night here in Scottsdale, and Eppler’s velocity was down a bit. He was 93-95 MPH in his last outing, but was 91-93 tonight. He’s also been working on a new slider here, which is a slurve that was sitting 82-83 tonight, and got a below average rating from a few scouts I talked to. Overall, he didn’t have his best stuff, and it didn’t help that he caught a bad break in his first full inning.
Here is a video of Steven Brault warming up before the game. I’ll have an article on Brault tomorrow morning.
Steven Brault doing his throwing program before today's AFL game. Brault is scheduled to start tomorrow. #Pirates pic.twitter.com/HTc3pXqUSE
— Tim Williams (@TimWilliamsP2) November 11, 2015
Here are photos of all five Pirates pitchers in the AFL.
