Outside of one outing, Wilfredo Boscan has seen a great deal of success with Indianapolis this season. This has come as a bit a surprise, as Indianapolis manager Dean Treanor admitted before the season that Boscan was expected to return to the Double-A level to start the campaign. However, injuries allowed him to start the season in the Indianapolis rotation, where he has had five quality starts and one incredibly crooked one.
Prior to the 2015 season, Boscan has pitched in 16 games at the Triple-A level in two different organizations with six starts. With Indianapolis this season, he has gone at least six inning in five starts, allowing no more than two earned runs in those starts. However, one start did include four unearned runs. In the other start, Boscan really struggled. He was only able to retire one hitter, allowing five hits, seven runs, a walk, and a hit batter.
After Sunday’s seven shutout innings, Boscan has worked 31.1 innings total, with a 2.87 ERA and a 20:11 K/BB ratio.
Boscan’s arsenal consists of a fastball between 89 and 92 and off speed pitches in the low to mid 70s, giving him a nice split between speeds. With the curveball, Boscan gets some nice downward movement, making hitters pound the ball into the ground.
He has been working more up in the zone lately, but has also shown the ability to get down in the zone with success. It is working the lower portion of the zone that allows him to be stronger. Boscan, similar to most Pirates farm hands, is not afraid in the slightest to work inside.
Boscan is not a power pitcher, so working down in the zone and getting ground balls are paramount. One issue for him is that while he doesn’t walk an extreme amount of hitters, he does pitch into a lot of deep counts, driving his pitch count up.
He was signed at a young age in 2007, and is finally showing some good results in the upper levels after struggling above A-ball in previous years. The Pirates signed him as a minor league free agent prior to the season and gave him an invitation to Spring Training, where he allowed one hit in 2.2 innings.
At only 25-years-old, Boscan has a lot of minor league pitching experience. While he has a long way to go to reach the next level, he has some of the tools and has time on his side.
