The Pittsburgh Pirates have recalled infielder Alen Hanson for tonight’s game, while also adding lefty pitcher Kelvin Marte to help out the bullpen. To make room on the 25-man roster, the Pirates assigned Steven Brault and Jameson Taillon to Bristol. To make room on the 40-man roster, Kyle Lobstein has been designated for assignment.
Marte was scheduled to start for Indianapolis today, so he is good if the Pirates need a lot of innings from the bullpen. After last night’s extra inning game, he may be used in long relief tonight. In his last ten appearances, he has a 1.19 ERA in 30.1 innings. Marte threw six no-hit innings two starts ago.
Hanson recently missed some time with a minor leg injury. In his two games since returning, he has three doubles, a single and a walk. He has an .819 OPS in August.
Lobstein allowed four runs over four innings in a start last night for Indianapolis. He has a 4.11 ERA in 50.1 innings in Triple-A, and a 3.96 ERA in 14 relief appearances for the Pirates.
The moves of Brault and Taillon to Bristol are just paper moves and both will return to the Pirates on September 2nd, the day after the Bristol season ends. If the Pirates sent them to any other team above Bristol, they would have to wait until that team’s season ends before recalling them.
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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.
Marte; why?
pretty much spells it out in the article, he could be used as long relief and he’s been on fire in his last 10 appearances.
In light of these moves, I wonder why the Bucs didn’t option Taillon the day before to keep Frazier on the bench an extra day, or option Taillon a day earlier to have Hansen available. They could certainly have used an extra bat in that extra-inning game in Chicago. Am I missing something?
I believe it was mentioned that Taillon had a bullpen set and the brass wanted to see how it went.
Good! It is long overdue for the Pirates to start using Hanson’s talents!! Next step is to bring Diaz up, hopefully on 1 September!
Agree with that 100%. Hanson since June has played excellent defense at 2B with a slash of .280/.347/.415/.762 OPS. Let’s hope that’s the Alen Hanson the Pirates get. I said before that I do not think Stewie will be ready in Sep, so I sure hope that Diaz is brought up.
I have watched these kids come up and become strong contributors on the mound and at the plate – great job of getting these kids ready. There is always a learning curve at every level, but many of these guys act like they do not know that.
Hopefully after Harrison got picked off yesterday Hurdle will start using Frazier or Hanson more at 2nd. I’m guessing Harrison was in some sort of shock after getting a walk and was wandering around when picked off.
Bell, Frazier, Taillon and Kuhl look like veterans. Not so much from Glasnow and Brault.
I’m assuming 373K Marte is up temporarily and Hanson permanently.
Cool, hope the kids get a chance to shine… Especially with the buccos up by about 10 in the 7th inning