A look at how the current top 30 prospects did today. If a player is in the majors and loses his prospect eligibility, 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 mid-season update, 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, Pirates -[insert_php]
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2. Austin Meadows, CF, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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3. Josh Bell, 1B, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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4. Kevin Newman, SS, Altoona – [insert_php]
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5. Mitch Keller, RHP, West Virginia -[insert_php]
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6. Nick Kingham, RHP, GCL Pirates – [insert_php]
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7.Cole Tucker, SS, Bradenton – [insert_php]
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8. Chad Kuhl, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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9. Will Craig, 3B, Morgantown – [insert_php]
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10. Steven Brault, LHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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11. Ke’Bryan Hayes, 3B, West Virginia -[insert_php]
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12. Elias Diaz, C, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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13. Clay Holmes, RHP, Altoona – [insert_php]
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14. Yeudy Garcia, RHP, Bradenton -[insert_php]
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15. Gage Hinsz, RHP, West Virginia – [insert_php]
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16. Trevor Williams, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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17. Alen Hanson, 2B, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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18. Tito Polo, OF, Bradenton – [insert_php]
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19. Stephen Tarpley, LHP, Bradenton – [insert_php]
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20. Brandon Waddell, LHP, Altoona – [insert_php]
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21. Tyler Eppler, RHP, Altoona -[insert_php]
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22. Max Moroff, 2B, Indianapolis -[insert_php]
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23. Taylor Hearn, LHP, West Virginia – [insert_php]
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24. Adrian Valerio, SS – Bristol – [insert_php]
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25. Braeden Ogle, LHP, GCL Pirates – [insert_php]
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26. Kevin Kramer, 2B, Bradenton -[insert_php]
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27. Travis MacGregor, RHP, GCL Pirates – [insert_php]
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28. Max Kranick, RHP, GCL Pirates – [insert_php]
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29. Frank Duncan, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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30. Dovydas Neverauskas, RHP, Indianapolis – [insert_php]
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INDIANAPOLIS — He found out the night before that he would be the starting pitcher on Saturday.
At this point, that’s not really a big deal for Kyle Lobstein. He’s been promoted to the Pirates four different times this season. And he’s been used as a spot starter on multiple occasions.
But despite those issues, and with just one exception, Lobstein has delivered an outstanding performance each time on the mound this season in Indianapolis this season.
He added another impressive start to his resume on Saturday. Chad Kuhl was the scheduled starter, but was scratched late Friday night. Kuhl is healthy and threw a bullpen session on Saturday, and likely to be the Pirates starter on Tuesday but no one at the Triple-A level would confirm that speculation.
Lobstein threw five shutout innings against Toledo, allowing just two hits. He walked two batters and struck out eight, throwing 49 of his 76 pitches for a strike in the Indians’ 4-1 loss.
“His command was really good and I thought he mixed well,” Indianapolis manager Dean Treanor said. “His changeup was good and I thought he used the slider well. He just really kept them off-balance.”
But this start has some significance based on how bad his last start went. He allowed eight runs on ten hits in 4.2 innings on July 30. That start was on the same day that the Pirates traded for left-handed reliever Felipe Rivero. It’s hard to think that may have not affected Lobstein in an adverse way.
“A lot of it in this game is execution of pitches,” Lobstein said. “A big thing is mixing my pitches, especially with (against Toledo) specifically.
The travel and uncertainty with four promotions can be difficult, but Lobstein has posted a 2.93 earned run average in five starts and 11 relief appearances.
“It’s definitely been a different year with the traveling and going up and down,” Lobstein said. “But it’s still been opportunities and trying to maximize your opportunities is all you can do with it. There are plenty of guys that would love to be in this situation, but at the same time it’s still tough. It’s a mental challenge and a physical challenge, too.”
Lobstein credits his wife for helping him deal with the constant flux of this season, which includes a handful of spot starts on short notice.
“It really takes a big support group,” Lobstein said. “My wife has been tremendous this whole time and has been traveling more than I have, driving back and forth between here and Pittsburgh as well as other places. She’s been a real rock for me and us as a couple — just keeping me on task and on focus.”
Some of Lobstein’s promotions have been short. His most recent promotion on July 6 was the shortest, not even lasting a full day. Lobstein was in the Pirates clubhouse in St. Louis on the morning of July 7 before being sent back to make a spot start in Indianapolis later that night. He threw six shutout innings in that outing.
“It’s not easy as we know and have seen with other guys,” Treanor said. “Him and I actually talked about it one day — what you feel when you’re there and then when you come back here and what you feel. And it’s not the same. With that being said, I think he does a great job of mentally preparing himself and he is aware that when he goes out there the intensity is not the same. … And he’s able to bring that to this level which is commendable. Not everybody can do that.”
Lobstein left the game with a 1-0 lead, but the Indians’ offense couldn’t create many opportunities after scoring nine runs on Friday. The lone run came on Alen Hanson’s solo home run in the sixth inning. That is Hanson’s sixth home run of the season.
But after that, the offensive chances were few. Jose Osuna had the team’s first hit in the fifth inning — a double that is the 20th extra-base hit in 35 games with the Indians.
Austin Meadows, in his first game with Indianapolis since going on the disabled list with a hamstring injury, was 2-for-4 and hit a double down the rightfield line in the sixth inning. If this game were four or five months removed from his injury, Meadows may have thought about a triple on the play but took the safe route, Treanor said.
“I thought he moved freely and I liked that he just pulled up into second on the double instead of trying to push it,” Treanor said. “It looked like he’s healthy and running well.”
Meadows only had to make relatively routine plays in the field, not being forced to test his hamstring very much defensively. He did run hard on a grounder up the middle that he almost beat out for an infield single.
Doyvdas Neverauskas pitched two innings with each one producing an opposite result. He struck out one batter and induced two groundouts, retiring the side in the sixth inning.
But then the seventh inning happened. Neverauskas worked a 2-2 count to Dean Green on two swinging strikes, but left a fastball up and over the plate. Green crushed the home run about 410 feet into the right-centerfield lawn. If Neverauskas located the fastball in the same location as earlier in the count, he would have likely gotten Green out, Treanor said.
Instead, the pitch was elevated and led to the home run, Neverauskas fell apart after that. He gave up consecutive walks to Dixon Machado and Jacoby Jones. A sacrifice bunt advanced the runners, and Jordany Valdespin hit a two-run pinch-hit single.
Neverauskas gave up another single, an RBI sacrifice fly, and a double before getting out of the inning. He allowed four earned runs in the inning, after allowing just three earned runs in his first 20.2 innings in Triple-A prior to Saturday night.
The problem was simple: Neverauskas needed to find a way to get past the home run. And he didn’t.
“Now it’s like he doesn’t want them to hit the ball and he walks the next two guys,” Treanor said. “And that’s a load of trouble. He has to be able to get past that home run. Yeah, it ties the game and all of that, but you have a job to do and keep it right there, and he didn’t do that.”
The Indians trailed by three runs when Max Moroff led the ninth inning off with a walk, which brought up the heart of the order — Meadows, Josh Bell, Jason Rogers, and Osuna.
Meadows responded with a hard single up the middle. But Bell hit a hard lineout to shortstop, and Rogers hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game. – Brian Peloza
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Altoona got five shutout innings from Clay Holmes on Saturday night. He worked out trouble a couple times in this game, but still looked strong at times. Holmes allowed four singles, walked four, and struck out five batters, while putting up a 7:2 GO/AO ratio. He got a lot of soft contact in this game, as well as numerous swing and misses. He was getting a lot of foul balls with two strikes, which ran up his pitch count and ended his night early.
Of the four hits he allowed, just one was hit hard and probably should have been caught. A screaming line drive to left field fooled Barrett Barnes, who backed up on the ball and then played it on a short hop, with the ball landing a few feet in front of him. The other three hits consisted of two slowly hit grounders in the infield, and a bloop over the second base bag. Holmes issued those four walks, but he wasn’t particularly wild, with 58 of his 94 pitches going for strikes. His curveball was his best pitch on this night and it got a few called strikes and numerous swinging strikes. In his last ten starts, Holmes has allowed two earned runs or less in nine of those games.
One pitch after Holmes left, Jared Lakind served up the 34th home run of the season by Reading’s Rhys Hoskins, who also drove in his 100th run on the play. That was all Reading would get, as Altoona won this game 2-1 in ten innings. The Curve scored in the ninth to tie with the help of a catcher interference call, followed by an RBI single from Eric Wood, which scored Anderson Feliz.
In the tenth, Barrett Barnes reached on a bunt single. Jonathan Schwind tried to bunt him to second, but they threw out Barnes. Erich Weiss then singled, moving Schwind to third. He would score the go-ahead run on an Anderson Feliz ground out. Montana DuRapau made it interesting in the bottom of the tenth by giving up two line drive singles to put runners on the corners, but he got a strikeout to end the game.
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Bradenton lost 4-3 to St Lucie, as JT Brubaker continued to have a tough time with the jump from Low-A to High-A this season. Brubaker was struggling when he left West Virginia, unable to keep his fastballs down in the zone, which led to a lot of homers and more walks than usual. So it’s no surprise that he initially struggled with the jump to Bradenton. After four runs on nine hits and two walks in 4.1 innings on Saturday, Brubaker now has 5.44 ERA in ten starts in High-A.
The worst part about his stats with the Marauders is the sharp decline in strikeouts. He had 77 strikeouts in 62 innings with West Virginia. He now has 29 in 51.1 innings with Bradenton. That’s 11.2 SO/9IP in Low-A, down to 5.1 now.
After Brubaker left, Junior Lopez and Jose Regalado combined to face one over the minimum to finish out the game, with Lopez issuing a walk for the only runner.
Tito Polo had a strong night on offense, going 2-for-3 with two walks and a run scored. He stole his 30th base of the season and he picked up an outfield assist. Pablo Reyes had three hits, an RBI, and a run scored. He hit his 17th double and stole his tenth base. Michael Suchy had two hits, including his 13th double.
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West Virginia got a solo homer from Christian Kelley in the ninth inning, which was all they would need in a 1-0 victory over Delmarva. Mitch Keller got the start and he has had a lot of trouble recently, getting knocked out of each of his last three starts before he could go five innings. On this night however, he put in six shutout innings and struck out nine batters.
Keller allowed four hits on the night, and while two of them went for doubles, he was never in any jams, spreading out those four runners. He didn’t walk a batter, and on all nine strikeouts, he got the batters to go down swinging. Keller hasn’t had this many strikeouts in a game since he set down ten in two of his first three starts this season. He had a 5:3 GO/AO ratio in this game and threw 56 of his 82 pitches for strikes.
The homer by Christian Kelley was his second of the season. The Power had just five hits on the night, with two coming from Alfredo Reyes, who also walked once and stole his 25th and 26th bases of the season. Logan Hill hit his 16th double of the year, and Mitchell Tolman had a single and a walk.
Casey Hughston went 0-for-5 and he’s now on a 4-for-41 stretch that includes one walk and 16 strikeouts. He has struck out 112 times in 305 at-bats this season. Out of the 74 batters with enough plate appearances to qualify for the South Atlantic League batting title, Hughston ranks 73rd in average, 73rd in OBP and 71st in OPS.
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MORGANTOWN, WV – The Black Bears lost Chris Harvey to Indianapolis earlier in the week, with Harvey backing up Jacob Stallings while Elias Diaz was on the taxi squad in Pittsburgh, in the event that Francisco Cervelli might have been injured. Harvey returned tonight, and just in time. With Morgantown down 2-1 in the tenth inning, he connected for a walk off two RBI double to the left field wall, giving them a 3-2 win.
Harvey is old for the level at 23. He’s a good defensive catcher, but has been held back due to injuries, with a knee injury last year, and a shoulder injury this spring. He’s feeling healthy now, and has done well at the plate (.740 OPS). The injuries will probably limit him to an organizational catcher, but he’s definitely got the build of a prospect.
Danny Beddes, drafted in the 15th round as a college senior this year, threw six shutout innings, with a run on four hits and three walks, along with four strikeouts. He was mostly working off his two-seamer tonight, but did have some control issues, and wasn’t getting consistent movement on the pitch. He was mixing in a cutter and a curveball, getting swings and misses on both pitches. The cutter looked like the better offering, coming in around 87 with some good tilt. The curve was thrown for strikes to the left side of the plate. His velocity was advertised as 90-94, touching 95, but he was mostly 89-91 tonight, hitting 93 at least once from what I saw.
Jason Creasy came on to make his first rehab appearance since going down with a forearm strain in April. He received a PRP injection in mid-May, then took a month off throwing, before slowly building back up. Creasy looked really good, sitting 93-94 MPH with his two-seamer, and frequently using a slurve, which is a new pitch for him that he threw for the first time in a game tonight. He was dropping it in for strikes consistently on the left side of the plate, and it looks better and much more consistent than his old curveball.
Creasy will throw two innings on Tuesday, and will likely join Altoona after that.
Will Craig picked up a single to extend his hitting streak to 14 games, which you can see below.
Clark Eagan had a good night tonight, going 2-for-4 with a walk. He’s been making some good contact the last few games. He’s a 9th rounder, and is athletic with average to above average speed. He’s mostly an average/OBP guy who doesn’t have a lot of power, so he will need to hit a lot to be a prospect. – Tim Williams
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Bristol lost 4-1 on Saturday night, dropping them to 17-25 on the season, and 2-8 in their last ten games. They had a .646 OPS coming into this game, which is easily the worst in the Appalachian League. They didn’t help that out in this game, collecting six hits, which were all singles. Raul Siri had two hits, his seventh stolen base, and the only RBI. He brought home Victor Fernandez with an infield single in the eighth inning. Fernandez, Huascar Fuentes and Alexis Bastardo each had a hit and a walk in this game.
Mike Wallace got the start and allowed one run on three hits and a walk over five innings. He had two strikeouts and an 11:4 GO/AO ratio. This is the second start for Wallace, who seems to be taking over Nestor Oronel’s spot in the rotation. John Pomeroy followed and had some major control issues, giving up three runs on a hit, walk, and two hit batters, plus a wild pitch. Shane Kemp finished it out with 2.2 shutout innings.
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Nick Kingham made his fifth start for the GCL Pirates and went three innings, allowing one run on two hits, while striking out two batters. He was only scheduled for three innings in this game, even though he went five in his last start. That last start was 12 days ago, and they gave him a slight break, which is nothing out of the ordinary with a return from Tommy John surgery. Kingham retired the side in order in each of the first two innings, then allowed a single, followed by a stolen base and an RBI single to begin the third frame. In 19 innings this season, he has a 2.37 ERA and only one walk.
The offense had three singles and two walks in the 4-1 loss. Their only run scored in the fifth inning, starting with a Mikell Granberry walk, followed by a single from Victor Ngoepe. After a Luis Benitez grounder moved Granberry to third base, Andrew Walker hit a sacrifice fly. The only runner the Pirates had over the last four innings was from a Phillies error. Granberry had both walks for the Pirates, while Edison Lantigua had a single and his fourth stolen base.
The Pirates lost for the fourth time in a row and dropped out of first place for the first time since early in the season.
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The DSL Pirates won 9-5 over the Yankees1 in a rain-shortened game on Saturday. The Pirates had 13 hits in the game, including four triples. Williams Calderon hit lead-off and had two hits, including his third triple. He scored twice, walked once and had an RBI. Francisco Mepris batted ninth and had three hits, including his third triple. He added two runs scored and stole his ninth base. Carlos Garcia had a triple, a walk, scored twice and drove in two runs. Jeremias Portorreal recorded an RBI on his fourth triple. Rodolfo Castro had two hits, drove in two runs, and scored a run. Rudy Guzman stole his 11th base of the season.
Starter Adonis Pichardo lasted just 1.1 innings, giving up two runs on three hits. Eumir Sepulveda followed him and threw 3.2 shutout innings for the win. Jose Delgado retired the side in order in the sixth, then the first five runs reached in the seventh before he was removed. Three of them scored, while Julio Gonzalez stranded both inherited runners to keep the game at 9-5, which is where it ended due to rain.
