The Pittsburgh Pirates played a B Game at Pirate City this morning, going up against the Minnesota Twins. The B Games at Pirate City are incredibly relaxed, without the typical structure that you see in a regular Spring Training game. That was seen today at the end of Vance Worley’s third inning.
The right-hander retired the side in order, but finished his outing too efficiently, and didn’t get enough pitches. So as Worley and his teammates started walking off the field after the third out, Ray Searage shouted out for everyone to stay on the field. The Twins sent another batter to the plate, and Worley got him out. Once again, Searage told everyone to stay on the field. Finally, Worley gave up a hit, and the inning was over, with his pitch count at 41, including the extra batters. Of those pitches, he threw 28 strikes. He went to the bullpen to finish throwing the rest of his pitches.
The outing was a good one for Worley, who went up against top Minnesota Twins prospects Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano, striking the pair out a combined three times on the day.
“Better than my last outing,” Worley said of his performance today. “I had better command of all of my pitches. I was able to get ahead in the count. Spin some off-speed stuff — cutter and curveball. I was just trying to get out there, get ahead in the count, get quick outs, and there were a couple of extra outs because of the pitch count.”
As for Buxton and Sano, Worley smiled when I asked about them, saying he knew about the matchup.
“I had seen them over there, so I wanted to make sure I gave them a little extra. Not so much velocity, but for me it’s all about mixing speeds and trying to stay ahead in the count. Today I feel that went really well for me.”
He struck both guys out in the first inning with his cutter. He struck out Buxton once more in the third inning. Here you can see video of him striking out Buxton in the first.
Here is Worley’s second strikeout against Buxton.
Worley strikes out Buxton again. #Pirates A video posted by Pirates Prospects (@piratesprospects) on
Here is Worley striking out Miguel Sano.
The Pirates won the game 2-1 in six innings, getting a lot of good pitching. Mark Melancon threw a shutout inning with two strikeouts, including one to Sano. Clayton Richard threw two innings of work, needing 30 pitches, with 20 strikes. He gave up the lone run on a solo homer to Jorge Polanco. The runs for the Pirates came on back-to-back RBI doubles by Jose Tabata and Willy Garcia. Tabata had two hits, one being an opposite field line drive over the right fielder’s head. The other one was a pulled line drive for a single between the shortstop and third baseman. Corey Hart made his Pirates’ debut as the designated hitter, and went 0-for-3.
