The Pirates dropped one on the road to the Phillies, 4-3. They’re now 1-5-2 on the spring.
Lots of lefties threw for the Bucs, but not much light got shed on the bullpen competition. The veteran lefties were a contrast. Rich Hill’s first outing went fine: two scoreless innings, one hit, one walk, two strikeouts. Jarlin Garcia, not so much. He got hit extremely hard, giving up four hits, all torched, and a walk, while recording one out. The carnage included another gopher ball and all four of the Phillies’ runs. So far, Garcia’s had one good outing and two terrible ones. He left this one due to arm tightness, which never bodes well.
The lefty hopefuls did fine. Rob Zastryzny got the last two outs of Garcia’s inning and threw one of his own. He did let one of Garcia’s runners score. Daniel Zamora added a scoreless inning.
The last three innings were taken care of by Chase De Jong and Kyle Nicolas. De Jong allowed a couple of hard hit balls, but the only runner came on an error. Nicolas threw two scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk. So far, the various pitching prospects have looked good.
The hitters Hainesed their way through another dreary day of futile flailing. They managed just four hits. Haines’ Hackers did pick up a walk, so there’s that.
The much-touted job competitions continued to be uninspiring, to put it mildly. Canaan Smith-Njigba was 0-for-3 but reached twice on errors, so if that’s a skill maybe he made some progress. Miguel Andujar was 0-for-3, as was Chavez Young. Connor Joe was 1-for-3 and seems to be the only outfielder (or 1B/OF/DH or whatever) who’s rising to the occasion. Tucupita Marcano went 0-for-2 with the team’s lone walk, so the second base competition remains in low gear.
The only signs of life came from Ke’Bryan Hayes, who tripled in one run, and Ji-Man Choi, who drove in the other two with a sacrifice fly and a double. Hayes seems to be swinging the bat well so far.
AND, as a bonus from Pirate City today . . .
