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, Pirates – In the Majors
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 – [insert_php]
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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, West Virginia – [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, Bradenton -[insert_php]
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INDIANAPOLIS — Wilfredo Boscan’s performance against Pawtucket was night and day in comparison to his previous outing — literally and figuratively.
Boscan didn’t allow a run and scattered four hits over six innings on Thursday night. That’s opposite the type of line he had in his last outing, a day game at Columbus, when he allowed seven runs and 10 hits in just 1.2 innings.
Indianapolis manager Dean Treanor quipped that he needs to start Boscan in more night games.
But the last start was simply a matter of not being able to get out of trouble and finish an inning.
Boscan’s previous start was his first one since returning from Pittsburgh, where he appeared in five games as a reliever. That may also played a role in the poor performance.
“He’s been up twice (including last season) and that’s not easy to come back,” Treanor said. “And he had thrown the ball well up there. I think in that last outing [against Columbus] that inning just got away from him. He just couldn’t finish off that inning. Tonight I thought he was really good.”
Boscan threw 82 pitches, 58 for a strike. But Pawtucket’s lineup is not littered with top young talent, with only one of the organization’s top-20 prospects — Deven Marrero — in the lineup. And he went 2-for-3.
But no matter how potent the Pawtucket lineup was, this was still a solid outing for Boscan, who had one strikeout and no walks. He got seven groundouts and three flyouts.
“It’s a combination of him mixing,” Treanor said. “He’s good with both sides of the plate. The thing that works for him is he changes speeds on his breaking ball. He’ll throw a hard one and throw a soft one. And that’s where you get some of those swings — on that soft one. It was working for him in the big leagues.”
One of the biggest scares for Boscan came in the first inning when Jantzen Witte’s hard grounder hit off his right thigh. He fielded the ball and flipped to first baseman Josh Bell for the out. And after a short visit on the mound, Boscan remained in the game.
Boscan got ahead of the first three Pawtucket hitters, but allowed three hard-hit balls — a sharp groundout to third baseman Cole Figueroa; the groundout that hit off Boscan’s thigh; and a lineout to leftfielder Perdo Florimon — after getting ahead in the count.
Boscan needed 15 pitches to retire the side in the second inning, but he did get some help from his defense. Gift Ngoepe took away an infield single on a slow roller to shortstop in the second inning, fielding and throwing to first while running in.
Marrero led third inning off with a hard hit single to leftfield, but Boscan worked around that with a fielder’s choice that was nearly a double play. Figueroa leaped to catch a hard lineout by Witte to end the threat.
Dovydas Neverauskas, a native of Lithuania, made his Triple-A debut, one day after his promotion from Altoona. He didn’t waste much time showing his velocity — quickly hitting 96 MPH. He pitched two innings in relief, allowing four hits and one run. He threw 31 pitches, 21 for a strike.
“He came throwing the ball well in Altoona,” Treanor said. “I have never seen him pitch, not even in spring training. And I haven’t been to Lithuania lately, so I never saw him over there.”
Treanor wanted to give Neverauskas a second inning of work, noting the 23-year-old looked nervous in his debut at this level.
“I thought he was a little bit nervous tonight and left some pitches over the plate,” Treanor said. “From what I’ve been told I believe he’s going to be better for us. He got his feet wet and we got him an extra inning. He threw the ball better in that second inning.”
Neverauskas said his fastball sits in the 94-96 MPH range and he hit 99 MPH a couple of weeks ago. He said he didn’t feel too many nerves in his Triple-A debut, instead focusing on what he did before he got here.
“Nothing changes,” Neverauskas said. “I’m trying to do the same thing I did in Double-A. It wasn’t like I was making big changes.”
Altoona pitching manager Justin Meccage passed along some advice to Neverauskas prior to his debut with the Indians.
“I got some messages from him saying do what you do and don’t change anything,” Neverauskas said. “[The Indians’ staff] just said do whatever you did in Double-A and don’t change much.”
Adam Frazier had an RBI triple for the Indians that hit off the bottom of the outfield fence that sits on top of the wall. He nearly had an inside-the-park home run when the Pawtucket outfielder misplayed the ball off the wall. Frazier leads the International League with a .343 average. – Brian Peloza
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ALTOONA, PA – The Altoona Curve went into the ninth inning up 1-0 off of a lone Austin Meadows’ home run; however, the game would get a little more interesting in the ninth. Montana DuRapau blew his first save of the season tonight – working on back-to-back days for the first time this year as well – by giving up a two-run home run after a lead-off walk. He allowed a double later in the inning before a mound visit by Pitching Coach Justin Meccage, and he retired the next batter for the last out.
“DuRapau has been so good all year, and you never expect that to happen,” Manager Joey Cora said. “At some point, it had to happen, though. All it takes is to leave the ball up a couple of times.”
Meadows led off the bottom of the inning by doubling to center field off of New Hampshire submarine pitcher Will Browning, followed by a bloop single by Edwin Espinal which was almost caught by the second baseman. Meadows advanced to third on the play, and Jin-De Jhang blasted a double over the right fielder’s head to score Meadows.
Harold Ramirez came in as a pinch runner for Espinal, and he came in to score from third after a wild pitch on an intentional walk attempt. Cora noted after the game that he gave Ramirez warning to be ready during the intentional walk attempt, since Browning is a side-arm/submarine pitcher, noting that it is much more difficult for those type of guys to intentionally walk batters.
“We told him to be head’s up in case he throws the ball away,” Cora said. “I know that it is very difficult for a guy who throws like that to throw it overhand and throw a ball. We were ready for that one. Espinal would’ve even scored on that one, too.”
Curve won the game 3-2 on the walk-off, but it took starter Clay Holmes to throw six scoreless innings for the team to get to that point. Holmes struck out nine in the outing, which is second to only once when he struck out ten batters in 2013 while pitching for West Virginia.
Holmes got six ground balls to only three balls in the air tonight on top of the strikeouts, and all of his pitches were working well. He threw about 50/50 two-seamers to four-seamers tonight, with the two-seam fastball getting quite a few swings and misses. His curveball showed good depth and was noticeably getting a lot of swings, as well.
“He showed times of dominance out there,” Pitching Coach Justin Meccage said. “When you get swings-and-misses on fastballs, that really shows how you are pitching.”
The fastballs collectively sat between 91-94 MPH, and the curveball dropped down to 79-80 MPH. Overall, it was a great comeback outing for Holmes, who allowed seven earned runs in 4.1 IP in his last time out.
The offense was all Austin Meadows until the ninth inning. It took him nine innings last night to get his first hit of the night, but he decided to not wait around tonight – hitting the solo home run in the first inning to extend his hitting streak to 24 games. Meadows drove the homer on a 2-2 count over the right field wall, after looking pretty uncomfortable early in the count. He seemed to cut the swing down and swing for contact before connecting for the home run.
Meadows also doubled, walked, and stole a base tonight. Defensively, Meadows picked up an outfield assist in the seventh inning to begin an 8-4-2 relay to get a New Hampshire runner out at home. Of course, John Dreker knows Pirates history better than anyone I know, and he pointed this out:
Austin Meadows picks up the Dave Parker hat trick: HR, SB, OF assist in a game. No #Pirates minor leaguer has done that in at least 4 yrs
— John Dreker (@JohnDreker) June 17, 2016
Of note, Meadows is batting .389 with a 1.401 OPS in his first inning at-bats this season. He has 11 extra base hits, including four homers, in the first inning.
Otherwise, Jin-De Jhang connected for two doubles tonight, including the game tying hit in the ninth. He also put together good at-bats in the second and fourth innings, but the ball didn’t fall to the ground. Barrett Barnes led off the eight inning with a triple, but he was unable to come around to score. – Sean McCool
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Yeudy Garcia continues to defy logic with his pitching lines this season. If you just looked at his ERA and strikeout totals, he’s one of the best pitchers in the Florida State League. If you looked at his WHIP and his average innings per start, he’s one of the worst pitchers in the league. On Thursday night, Garcia threw 5.1 shutout innings, striking out six batters. That gives him a 2.51 ERA and 66 strikeouts in 57.1 innings. He also gave up four hits (two doubles) and three walks, while throwing 53 of his 93 pitches for strikes. He is averaging less than 4.2 innings per outing and high pitch counts have been an issue in all but one game this year.
On offense, Kevin Newman has looked just as good as before his eye injury, which cost him nearly three weeks. On Wednesday he had four hits and a walk. In this game, he drove in five of the six Marauder runs in the 6-2 victory. He hit his tenth double and first triple of the season. Newman has a league-leading .366 average. Cole Tucker had two hits, including his first triple. He scored two runs. Taylor Gushue connected on his sixth homer and added his tenth double.
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CHARLESTON, WV – Scattering five hits over five innings is usually a solid outing for a starter, but over the course of those five hits (four home runs), Dario Agrazal gave up eight runs, effectively tanking any chance of the Power defeating the first-half champion Charleston River Dogs. Agrazal struggled to command his fastball, leading to a GO/AO ratio of 6:4.
Agrazal has struggled with the long ball recently. In his last five starts (including tonight), he has given up at least one home run. In those starts, his ERA is 9.00, and for the season, his ERA is now 5.34.
With the Power in an 8-0 hole, Daniel Zamora took the mound for two innings in which he allowed a single base runner. The strong performance allowed the Power offense to tighten the game over the sixth and seventh innings.
In the bottom of the sixth, the Power plated four runs, cutting the lead in half. Casey Hughston, returning from a month of Extended Spring Training, notched two hits and a run. His hard-hit balls are a welcome sign after a strikeout-heavy start to the season.
John Bormann continued his consistency at the plate. He has reached in each of his 20 games this year. Tonight, Bormann contributed a single and an RBI double.
Heading into the eighth inning, the Power trailed by three, and Seth McGarry entered the game. McGarry struggled after two quick outs but ultimately stranded runners at second and third. McGarry had four strikeouts in his two shutout innings.
Tito Polo smashed a solo homer over the left field wall in the bottom of the ninth, but the Power fell 8-6 to the River Dogs. The homer was the 12th of the season for Polo and he also added his 20th stolen base. – Abigail Miskowiec
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The DSL Pirates lost by two touchdowns and two field goals on Thursday to the Rangers1. The Pirates had four singles in the game and no walks, compared to 19 hits and nine walks for the Rangers1. This game didn’t have the feel of a one-sided game early, with the Pirates trailing 3-0 after four innings. Then in the fifth, they gave up six runs, followed by a single run in the sixth and then things went even further south in the eighth with ten runs scored.
Starter Sergio Cubilete allowed the first seven runs over his four innings. He actually faced four batters in the fifth without an out before being pulled. Adonis Pichardo followed and he only allowed one earned run over his three innings, so he didn’t pitch that bad. The eighth saw Raymond Rodriguez allow the first five batters to reach before he was removed with no outs. Then Edgardo Leon gave up five runs before he left with two outs. It finally took Armando Bustamante to put out the fire, as he threw 1.1 scoreless innings. He’s had to do that three times this season, throwing a total of 3.2 scoreless innings to finish off games.
A couple bright spots on offense. Top prospect Kevin Sanchez had two hits and Sherten Apostel picked up his second hit of the season. He was 1-for-25 before that single. Sanchez is 5-for-12 after going 0-for-7 in his first two games.
