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Stephen Tarpley Joins West Virginia, Will Start Monday

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Stephen Tarpley, the 22-year-old left-hander that the Pittsburgh Pirates picked up from the Baltimore Orioles in the Travis Snider trade, will make his season debut on Monday for the West Virginia Power. He was shutdown at the end of Spring Training with shoulder soreness and has been building his pitch count back up in Extended Spring Training. On Tuesday, he threw 70 pitches in his five innings, sitting 90-92 MPH with his fastball, 78-80 MPH with good tilt on his slider, and 83-85 MPH with his changeup. He has hit 97 MPH in the past.

Tarpley spent last season in the New York-Penn League, where he had a 3.66 ERA in 66.1 innings, with 60 strikeouts and a 1.95 GO/AO ratio. That only tells half the story, as he was much better in the second half of his season. He switched to a three-quarters arm slot last year and struggled with it early. His first start will come on the road in Lakewood.

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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