In Winter League action from today down in Australia, the Adelaide Bite split their doubleheader, winning the first game 5-2, before dropping the second game by a 7-3 score. Among Pittsburgh Pirates farmhands, Stefan Welch and Justin Howard started both games, while Dylan Child caught the second game. Adelaide also used Rinku Singh in relief in game one and Wilson Lee pitched for the second day in a row in game two. Summaries of each player’s day are as follows:
Stefan Welch went 2-for-3 with a double and RBI in game one. He followed that up with an 0-for-5, two strikeout game. He started at third base both games. Welch has a .269/.345/.548 line in 26 AB’s.
Justin Howard went 0-for-2 with a walk in game one. He was 1-for-2 with two walks in the second game. Howard played left field during the opener and moved to first base for the nightcap. Howard has a .152/.333/.182 line in 33 AB’s.
Dylan Child went 0-for-3 with a walk and strikeout. He is hitting .150 after 20 AB’s.
Rinku Singh faced the minimum in his inning of work, retiring the side on 11 pitches, eight for strikes. He has made four scoreless appearances this ABL season.
Wilson Lee took the loss in game two, giving up four earned runs in 1.2 innings. He allowed four hits, two of them homers and also hit a batter and threw a wild pitch. Lee threw 29 pitches in yesterday’s game, matching that number today. Just 14 of his pitches were for strikes.
Adelaide resumes their schedule next Friday with a four game weekend series against Canberra. They will play a Saturday doubleheader.
In Dominican League action yesterday, Starling Marte went o-for-3 with two walks, a run scored and his seventh stolen base. Marte is perfect in stolen base attempts and he has now drawn ten walks in 16 games after receiving just eight free passes in 47 major league games this year. In that same game, Anderson Hernandez went 1-for-3 with a single.
In other games, Felix Pie went 1-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI. Alex Valdez, who batted right behind Pie in the order, went 3-for-4 with a solo home run and two RBI’s. He is now hitting .308 with a .913 OPS in 91 AB’s.
In Mexico, Jovany Lopez was used in the lefty specialist role again, facing just one batter for the sixth straight time. He retired the lone batter by strikeout, needing four pitches to record the out. He has pitched a total of 5.1 innings this year over ten appearances, striking out nine batters total.
In Venezuela, Elevys Gonzalez went 0-for-1 with a walk and strikeout. Prior to last night, he had three plate appearances over his five games played.
