On Wednesday night, the Dominican league game between Leones del Escogido and Aguilas Cibaenas had a lot of interesting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. On one side of the field, Jung-Ho Kang and Edwin Espinal were in the Aguilas lineup. On the other side, Starling Marte was making his winter debut and Pablo Reyes was playing second base for Escogido. The game also included former Pirate minor leaguers Reese McGuire, Willy Garcia and Eury Perez, just for some added flavor.
Marte’s debut was the biggest note from this game, but it was a relatively quiet game from the entire group of current Pirates. Marte batted third, played left field and went 0-for-4, with a fly out to right field, a fly out to center field, a ground out to second base and a strikeout. He posted a video on Instagram of his batting practice on Tuesday.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba7JNq_nKUf/
Jung-Ho Kang went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout. He’s hitting .130 through 13 games, with a double, homer, three walks and 18 strikeouts.
Edwin Espinal went 0-for-4, driving in a run in the first inning on a ground out. That turned out to be the difference in the 2-1 game. Espinal is hitting .375/.474/.469 in ten games.
Pablo Reyes went 0-for-2 with two walks. He’s hitting .200/.310/.239 in 12 games.
Anderson Feliz wasn’t in the big game, but he did see action in the Dominican. He went 1-for-3 with a single, walk and two runs scored.
In Venezuela, Elvis Escobar went 1-for-4 with a single, RBI and three strikeouts. He’s hitting .303/.357/.355 in 19 games. Escobar was supposed to work on his base stealing this winter, but so far he has attempted just two steals.
