A look at how the current top 30 prospects did today. Note that this list doesn’t include players currently in the majors. If a player is in the majors, he will be removed, everyone below him will be shifted up a spot, and a new player will be added to the bottom of the list. If a player is out for the season, he will be removed and everyone below him will move up a spot. Removing these guys doesn’t mean they have lost prospect status. It is just an attempt to get 30 active prospects on the list. Rankings are from the 2016 prospect guide, and links on each name go to their Pirates Prospects player pages.
We’re working on a solution for the PHP stat codes not working in the app.
1. Tyler Glasnow, RHP, Indianapolis -[insert_php]
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2. Austin Meadows, CF, Altoona – [insert_php]
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3. Josh Bell, 1B, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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4. Jameson Taillon, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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5. Alen Hanson, 2B, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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6. Harold Ramirez, OF, Altoona -[insert_php]
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7. Reese McGuire, C, Altoona -[insert_php]
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8. Elias Diaz, C, Pirates – Disabled List.
9. Nick Kingham, RHP, Indianapolis – Disabled List
10. Ke’Bryan Hayes, 3B, West Virginia -[insert_php]
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11. Kevin Newman, SS, Bradenton – Disabled List
12. Yeudy Garcia, RHP, Bradenton -[insert_php]
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13. Steven Brault, LHP, Indianapolis – Disabled List
14. Stephen Tarpley, LHP, Bradenton – [insert_php]
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15.Cole Tucker, SS, Bradenton – [insert_php]
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16. Chad Kuhl, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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17. Max Moroff, 2B, Indianapolis -[insert_php]
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18. Mitch Keller, RHP, West Virginia -[insert_php]
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19. Clay Holmes, RHP, Altoona – [insert_php]
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20. Willy Garcia, OF, Indianapolis -[insert_php]
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21. Brandon Waddell, LHP, Altoona – [insert_php]
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22. Tyler Eppler, RHP, Altoona -[insert_php]
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23. Barrett Barnes, OF, Altoona -[insert_php]
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24. Trevor Williams, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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25. Gage Hinsz, RHP – [insert_php]
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26. Adrian Valerio, SS – Extended Spring Training
27. Adam Frazier, INF/OF, Indianapolis -[insert_php]
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28. Kevin Kramer, 2B, Bradenton -[insert_php]
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29. Jordan Luplow, OF/3B, Bradenton – [insert_php]
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30. JT Brubaker, RHP, West Virginia -[insert_php]
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Chad Kuhl made the start on Sunday, his 11th of the season. He came into the day with the best ERA (1.24) in the International League and his 0.86 WHIP is second only to Jameson Taillon. He got the ball in game one of a doubleheader.
Kuhl started the first already with a 2-0 lead. He walked the first batter after a few two-strike fouls. The next pitch was put down for a sacrifice bunt, which may have been an attempt for a hit, but it moved the runner up regardless. One more pitch and Kuhl had the second out on a grounder to second base, which moved the runner to third base. He struck out the next batter on six pitches, though the third pitch was nearly right down the middle and should have been a called strike three. Kuhl threw a nice slider and changeup in this inning, looking strong with three of his pitches. He needed 17 pitches to get out of the inning.
In the second inning, Kuhl started with a fly out to shallow left field. That was followed by a fly out to shallow center. There weren’t many pitch speeds this game, but Kuhl hit 93 with his sinker, 84 with a changeup. He used the slider to strike out the third batter, ending the frame on 14 pitches, using all three offerings for strikes.
The third started with his third strikeout, using all three pitches. The next batter battled with two strikes until he got a pitch to hit and he put it in the seats for the first run and hit. That was followed by a soft liner to center field for a single. The next batter hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning. Kuhl had to throw 20 pitches this inning.
The fourth started with a called strike on an inside sinker for his fourth strikeout. Kuhl. The next batter went down swinging on three pitches, as Kuhl used the slider for strike three. That was followed by a soft single which went against the shift. Would have been an easy ground out with normal defense. Kuhl followed that with his second walk. That was followed by a three-run homer on a sinker he left up in the zone. The first home run was probably wind-aided according to the announcers, who said it blowing out that way. This one however would have been into the wind and it still went well out.
The homer was followed by a single over the glove of a leaping Pedro Florimon. The next batter hit a ball to the right of Alen Hanson and as he reached out to play the hop, the ball instead shot back towards him. It was ruled an error, but Hanson had no time to react to the bad hop (UPDATE: This was correctly changed to a hit after the game ended). It should have been an inning ending grounder without the hop. With the hop, it should have been scored a tough luck single against Kuhl, but either way, it ended his day due to his pitch count.
The last time Kuhl allowed more than two earned runs in a game was August 1, 2015, which was 17 starts ago. In his five starts before that game, he allowed a combined two earned runs. So you’re basically talking about a stretch of 22 games where this has happened once. The worst part was that it started with a routine grounder against the shift with two outs, which followed two quick strikeouts. Kuhl was having trouble with his pitch count prior to that, but it was mostly due to a lot of foul balls. His sinker, slider and change all looked real good until the game fell apart. I thought we could see his next start/appearance in Pittsburgh, but I don’t think they would call a pitcher up after a game like this, even if he did have all of his pitches working early.
Indianapolis won this game by a 7-5 score. Kelvin Marte picked up the win by following Kuhl with one run over 3.1 innings. The Indians picked up 14 hits, including solo homers from Alen Hanson and Dan Gamache. Hanson went 2-for-4, while the seldom-used Gamache went 3-for-4 with a double as well. Hanson is 9-for-22 in his last five games. Willy Garcia had three hits and drove in two runs. Josh Bell drove in two runs with a single in the first inning. Adam Frazier scored twice and had two hits, including his 12th double. He also stole his 15th base of the season. Danny Ortiz had two hits and drove in a run.
Game Two – The second game featured Kyle Lobstein in a starting role and Justin Masterson made his Indianapolis debut out of the bullpen. He was scheduled to start on Saturday, but once they had the rain out on Saturday, then they wanted to keep the other pitchers on their scheduled days. Lobstein allowed two runs on five hits and two walks, with four strikeouts in three innings. He threw 66 pitches, 38 for strikeouts in his abbreviated outing. Masterson pitched 1.1 innings, allowing a hit and two walks, with no strikeouts. He only threw 12 of his 26 pitches for strikes.
Indianapolis lost this game in the bottom of the seventh with Jim Fuller allowing three consecutive hits for the walk-off 4-3 win. On offense, Adam Frazier collected three hits, including his 13th double. Unfortunately, he also had his 11th caught stealing in 26 attempts and it came at a very bad time. In the seventh inning with two men on and one out and the score tied, he tried to steal third base and the throw was there before he even started his slide. Willy Garcia was at the plate and had some nice hits during the doubleheader, so it was also a bad time to try the steal.
Max Moroff had the big hit for Indianapolis, driving home two runs with a sixth inning single, which tied the score. Danny Ortiz had two hits, a walk, scored a run and picked up an RBI in three plate appearances.
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ALTOONA, PA – Frank Duncan made his first start back at Double-A Altoona after starting four games in Indianapolis following Steven Brault’s injury. Duncan was very effective through his first three innings of work, throwing 39 pitches and working quickly. The lone blemish against him in those first three innings was a ground ball single through the right side.
In the fourth, everything seemed to work against Duncan. The inning began with a slow grounder just out of the reach of a diving Jose Osuna at first base. Jayce Boyd of Binghamton then blooped a hit to right field that Stetson Allie got a bad read on then tried to come in and dive for the catch, and the ball got past him. The ball probably would’ve been caught had Allie not hesitated to break in for the ball, but he may have been affected by the sun out of the corner of his eye. The next batter grounded a ball up the middle right to a shifted Anderson Feliz, but the ball hit second base and took a crazy bounce, allowing a runner to score. Duncan then seemed to break down some and allowed a hard hit book-rule double to right field followed by a liner past the shortstop. A grounder almost got Duncan out of the inning with a double play, but the runner beat the throw to first and allowed the runner to score. Duncan struck out the next batter to finally end the inning, but four runs would ultimately come across to score.
“It was a combination of a misplay in right field by Allie and a ball that hit the bag at second base,” Curve manager Joey Cora said. “Those are two outs. We make those two plays, and it may be just one run. It wasn’t that he pitched bad at all; those two plays contributed to four rather than maybe only one run.”
Duncan put up zeroes in his next two innings of work to finish with four earned runs given up, four strikeouts, and a walk. It was a very similar story as the last two games with Brandon Waddell on Friday and Tyler Eppler on Saturday, with one bad inning doing the damage against the starter. Each starter looked good other than when they had to work from the stretch in one inning of work.
Pitching Coach Justin Meccage said after the game that Duncan quite possibly may have thrown too many strikes which led to Binghamton batters capitalizing in the fourth. Again, the inning started with some tough luck, but Duncan did allow a couple of hard hit balls with runners on base.
“He’s a strike thrower that may at times need to go outside of the zone with some stuff,” Meccage said. “Sometimes when hitters recognize that, they just start swinging, and it becomes a situation where he needs to throw off the plate and bury some breaking balls.”
Duncan had a 14:7 ground ball to fly ball ratio in the outing. He threw his slider (slurve) outside of the zone well after that fourth inning, and he coupled that with throwing his fastball inside. On the night, he threw mostly two-seam fastballs between 88-91 MPH.
Josh Smith and Dovydas Neverauskas combined for three scoreless innings pitched after Duncan left the game, and both relievers looked extremely impressive in doing so. Smith has a 0.96 ERA in his last 12 outings/18.2 IP, and he has 25 strikeouts in that same time frame. Neverauskas has only allowed one earned run since mid-April, and he looked great tonight in the ninth inning, as well. He nearly struck out the side in the ninth, but he wasn’t awarded a strike call for the third strike during the last at-bat. Neverauskas hit 98 MPH with his fastball tonight.
Reese McGuire doubled on a liner to left field in the second inning, and he came around to score on a Edwin Espinal double during the next at-bat. McGuire has now hit a double in four of his last five games after only hitting four extra base hits the whole season before then. He was batting .200 on May 7th, and he has steadily risen his average since then with it up to .258 now. Between May 8th and tonight, McGuire is hitting .322 with an OPS over .830.
In the ninth, Austin Meadows closed out the top of the inning by completely laying out to his left to grab what should have been an extra base hit for the final out. Meadows went a long way to make the diving catch, and I would say it was one of the best – if not the best – catch I’ve seen yet this season by a Curve outfielder. After recording that last out, Meadows led off the bottom of the inning with an absolute monster of a home run to right field. The ball exploded off of his bat to bring the Curve within one run. Meadows now has five triples and a home run in his last five games, and he is currently on a 14-game hitting streak.
Jose Osuna has had a tough stretch of late, batting .139 over his last 12 games after an 0-for-3 performance tonight. He has looked uncomfortable at the plate lately, and he was removed in a double switch after an easy groundout in the sixth inning. Osuna’s average is now down to .240, and he hasn’t hit a home run in nearly a month.
After a Barrett Barnes walk and a Reese McGuire sacrifice bunt – which was executed to perfection mind you – Edwin Espinal and Stetson Allie both struck out to end the game as a Curve loss, 4-3. Allie was tossed following the last at-bat for presumably arguing the strike call to end the game. -Sean McCool
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Bradenton took a 6-0 lead against Lakeland and then held on for a 6-3 victory on Sunday. Alex McRae started the game and looked strong early. He worked quickly through five shutout innings, before giving up a run in the sixth. In the seventh, the first three batters reached against him, ending his day on a down note. Prior to today, he had allowed two earned runs or less in eight of his 11 starts. He gave up three runs on five hits, three walks and a hit batter. Despite the three walks and a hit batter, McRae threw 56 of his 79 pitches for strikes, so he wasn’t wild. He struck out five batters and had a 6:5 GO/AO ratio.
On offense, Kevin Kramer had three hits and drove in three runs for the second consecutive game. He hit his tenth double of the season, while Jordan Luplow hit his ninth and Elvis Escobar added his eighth double. Kramer raised his average over .300 (.304) for the first time all season. Cole Tucker had a single, a walk and scored two runs. He stole his first base for Bradenton, and his second of the season. He is 7-for-22 in six games since being promoted.
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West Virginia has off today.
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The DSL Pirates opened up their season with a 9-5 loss yesterday. The boxscore wasn’t uploaded until 11:00 AM this morning, so you likely missed the recap, which can be found here. You can view the DSL season preview here.
