In the Dominican on Tuesday night, Starling Marte went 0-for-3, leaving him 3-for-23 through six games, with a double, triple and a walk. He played center field for the first time and picked up an outfield assist for the second game in a row.
We mentioned on Tuesday morning that Edwin Espinal had become a minor league free agent. There is still a chance for the Pirates to re-sign him, they seem to re-sign at least one player each year after they reach minor league free agency. On Tuesday night, Espinal went 2-for-4 with a run scored and two RBIs. That gave him a .367/.466/.449 slash line through 15 games. He ranks third in the league in batting average and OPS, and second in OBP.
Pablo Reyes went 2-for-4 with his third double of the winter. He now has a .227/.314/.295 slash line through 16 games.
Anderson Feliz also became a minor league free agent this week. He went 1-for-3 with a bases loaded triple on Tuesday. He’s batting .360 through 25 at-bats.
Jung-Ho Kang had a scheduled night off.
In Mexico, the third new minor league free agent from this group went 1-for-3 with his third double and a sacrifice fly. Carlos Munoz is now hitting .319/.417/.435 through 22 games. The league in Mexico is high offense, so while those are strong numbers (especially for someone with no Double-A experience), he ranks 20th in the league in OPS. An .851 OPS in the Dominican would rank him sixth in the league.
In Venezuela, Bravos de Margarita said that they now expect Elias Diaz and Jose Osuna to join the team later in the month of November. A week or so ago, they said they hoped to get them around the middle of the month.
In Colombia, we still don’t have stats through four games, but 17-year-old Francisco Acuna has started at shortstop in every game. So far, he’s the only one of seven Pittsburgh Pirates in the league to play. The other six all appear to be on reserve rosters at this time. It’s likely that four of them (three July 2nd signings and catcher Yair Babilonia) are in the Dominican right now for the Instructional League. The other two would be Santiago Florez and Luis Arrieta, both pitchers. The Pirates don’t let young pitchers play winter ball too often, so that might be why they haven’t played yet.
