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Dejan Kovacevic reports that the Pirates trimmed the roster to 49 this morning. Top prospects Pedro Alvarez and Jose Tabata were sent to minor league camp, along with Doug Bernier and Jonathan Van Every. UPDATE (9:45...

Twins 5, �Pirates 4 �(box)

Three Pirates homered this afternoon, but it wasn't enough to beat the Twins at Fort Myers, Florida. �C Jason Jaramillo got the Pirates started with a solo blast over the right field wall in the 3rd inning. �2B Delwyn Young had the next shot, which came with SS Ronny Cedeno on base in the 6th inning to add 2 runs. �Moments later, 1B Jeff Clement contributed his own solo homer, for the Pirates' 4th run. �Young's homer was his fourth in five games. �Unfortunately, those four hits (three homers plus Cedeno's double) were the only hits the Pirates had in the game. � 1b Steve Pearce was the only Pirate to reach base on a walk.

The Twins scored their runs one at a time, on 9 hits. �Pirates' starter Ross Ohlendorf gave up 2 runs on 4 hits in 4 innings of work. �The first run came in the 2nd inning, on an RBI ground out with runners on second and third bases. �After Jaramillo tied the score in the top of the 3rd, DH Jim Thome un-tied it with a home run off Ohlendorf in the 4th. �The Bucs' 3-run top of the 6th game them a 4-2 lead. �Chris Jakubauskas and Javier Lopez each pitched a scoreless inning, with Lopez picking up two strikeouts. �Jack Taschner took the mound in the 7th, and gave up a homer to 3B Brendan Harris, to cut the Pirates' lead to one run. �Brian Bass pitched the 8th inning and was charged with a Blown Save when he gave up a run on a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 4-4. �Then in the bottom of the 9th, a hit and a walk-off RBI double by 3B Luke Hughes gave the Twins the win.

Also in the game: �SS Jordy Mercer was the lucky minor leaguer who got to join the big club for the day. �2B Doug Bernier, RF Jose Tabata, 1B Steve Pearce, LF Jon Van Every, PH/DH Brian Myrow, 3B Pedro Alvarez, 3B�Neil Walker, and C Erik Kratz all got to play too.

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In minor league camp, Octavio Dotel threw 24 pitches in a minor league game, but it was not a AAA game. �The Indy Indians did not have a game today.

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The Minor League portion of the Grapefruit League began today, and the Indianapolis Indians kicked off their spring training games with a win. �Visiting in Clearwater, Florida, the Indians beat the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (Philadelphia) by a score of 3-0.

CF Gorkys Hernandez opened the game with a triple, and SS Brian Friday followed with a 2-run home run to give the Indians a 2-0 lead before the Iron Pigs could even catch their breaths. �The Tribe scored again in the 4th inning, when C Tony Sanchez led off with a double, and 1B Matt Hague brought him in with an RBI single.

On the mound, five Indians' pitchers combined to shut out the Iron Pigs and hold them to 3 hits. �Starter Virgil Vasquez pitched 4 innings and allowed 2 hits, while striking out 4 batters. �Vasquez earned the win, and reliever Jeff Sues earned the save with a scoreless inning, allowing 2 walks.

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Meanwhile, back in Bradenton, the Pirates lost to the Tigers, 6 - 3. � (box)

The Pirates scored in the second inning, when 1B Bobby Crosby led off with a walk, then scored on RF Ryan Church's double. �3B Andy LaRoche lined out, but it was deep enough to let Church move up to third base. �He scored when Tigers' starter Nate Robertson committed a balk. �In the 7th, with one out, 3B Pedro Alvarez doubled into center field. �LF Jose Tabata singled, and CF John Raynor plated Alvarez with a single off the glove of the Tigers' shortstop.

Starter Kevin Hart did not help himself in his bid to join the Pirates' starting rotation. �He pitched to 12 batters over 1.2 innings, walked 6 of them, hit one of them, and gave up a hit. �He was lucky to escape allowing only one run. �Jeff Karstens got a ground out to finish the 2nd inning, then pitched a 1-2-3 third inning. �DJ Carrasco and Brendan Donnelly each gave up 2 runs in one inning of work, and Vinnie Chulk gave up another run in his inning. �Steven Jackson allowed 2 hits but no runs; Evan Meek and Anthony Claggett both retired the side in order in one inning of work.

Also getting into the game: �2B Gift Ngoepe came in to play second base and did fine; he had a foul pop out in his only trip to the plate. �PH/DH Neil Walker had a line-drive single to lead off the 8th inning, but did not score. �C Erik Kratz went 0-for-1 with a walk. �1B Steve Pearce, RF Jon Van Every, and SS Doug Bernier also got into the game.

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Welcome to the new Sandlot Swashbucklers, new here on the Bloguin Network!

We focus on the Pittsburgh Pirates' minor league system and the players in their organization. �Join us as we watch these players advance on their way up to the major leagues.

Please join us as we get ready for the upcoming 2010 minor league season, which begins on April 8th.

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The Pirates' minor league affiliates are:

AAA: �Indianapolis Indians of the International League

AA: Altoona Curve of the Eastern League

A+: �Bradenton Marauders of the Florida State League

A: West Virginia Power of the South Atlantic League

Short Season A: �State College of the New York - Penn League

Rookie: �Bradenton Pirates of the Gulf Coast League

The Pirates also have affiliates in the Dominican Summer League and the Venezuelan Summer League.

The Pirates had a day off on Tuesday �-- no workouts, no games. �Minor league games begin on Wednesday. Until then.... a couple more relief pitchers to look at. Derek Hankins was the Pirates' 10th round pick in the 2004 draft. �The righty has moved slowly up through the Pirates' organization, but spent all of 2008 with AA Altoona. �He made 23 starts and one relief appearance for the Curve that season, piling up 119 innings while earning a 2-11 record and a 4.54 ERA. �He gave up a lot of hits (135), 60 earned runs, and 26 walks, and struck out 89 batters. �Hankins was sent to the Arizona Fall League after the 2008 season, where he made 12 relief appearances for the Scottsdale Scorpions. � He struggled in Arizona --in 13 innings there, Hankins gave up 12 earned runs and 17 hits, though with 10 strikeouts. �The Illinois native returned to Altoona for the 2009 season, but the season got off to a rocky start. �After making a brief relief appearance on Opening Day and giving up a 2-RBI triple, Hankins was placed on the Disabled List with what was listed as a "stomach ailment". �He did not return to the Altoona active roster until early June. �Upon his return, Hankins made 4 relief appearances, allowing 6 earned runs on 11 hits and 3 walks. �Then he returned to the starting rotation for the end of June and into July (plus one relief inning in July). �In 6 starts, he pitched 30 innings, half for 4 innings and half for 6 innings. �He earned a 4-2 record with a 3.90 ERA in that time, and struck out 22. �Hankins made 3 starts and 4 relief appearances in August/September, throwing 21.2 innings. �He gave up 33 hits, 16 earned runs, 9 walks. �He also struck out 32 batters, which was an improvement. �The 26-year-old finished his shortened season with a 3-4 record and a 4.42 ERA over 71.1 innings, and 66 strikeouts -- his highest strikeout rate (8.3 K/9 innings) of his career. �Hankins seemed to do better in a relief role, and he is likely to be back in the Altoona bullpen in 2010. Moises Robles is a Dominican native, who came to the Pirates from the Mets' organization in the December 2006 Rule 5 draft. �He had previously pitched only in the Dominican Summer League, but made his US debut with the Pirates in 2007 at State College, where he made 13 starts. �In 2008, Robles was moved to the bullpen, and made 19 relief appearances for A level Hickory, 18 for A+ Lynchburg, and 13 for AA Altoona, though his ERA and his hits allowed rose as he moved up in the organization. �The Pirates sent Robles to the Hawaiian Winter League in the fall of 2008. �He appeared in just 4 games for West Oahu, going 3.2 innings, and allowing 4 hits and 2 runs, without walking or striking out any batters. �Robles began the 2009 season on the Disabled List, but returned to Lynchburg once he was ready to go. �He pitched 10 innings for the Hillcats in May, and earned a 3.60 ERA. �Robles was promoted to Altoona at the end of May. �He stayed with the Curve for two weeks, only pitching 3.2 innings, with a 9.81 ERA. �Back in Lynchburg, Robles pitched 14.1 scoreless innings in July, but allowed 13 runs in 14 innings in August. �Overall, he had a 0-2 record and a 4.43 ERA for the Hillcats, in a total of 42.2 innings, with 21 runs on 48 hits, 7 walks, and 26 strikeouts. �Robles was back to Altoona again for 4.2 innings during the first week of September. �He finished up with a 1-0 record and a 6.48 ERA for the Curve, but again allowed more hits than innings (12 hits in 8.1 innings), with 2 walks and 7 strikeouts. �Robles will be 26 years old in April. �He will probably return to Altoona, but he'll need to work on giving up fewer hits, and more strikeouts would also be a help.

When we compared the Pirates’ 2009 offense with the team’s 2010 projections, we found that the Bucs should expect to see a five-win improvement strictly through their performance at the plate. That is all well and good, but it is only one aspect of the team. Today we look at the defense, which does not look quite as optimistic.

Via Jen Langosch, Neal Huntington has indicated that D.J. Carrasco is very likely to be in the Pirates' bullpen at the beginning of the season.

Neil Walker will begin the 2010 season at Triple-A, his third consecutive stint at that level. The former top prospect’s future is murky at best, with Andy LaRoche blocking him in Pittsburgh and Pedro Alvarez storming through the minor leagues.

Minor league games begin on Wednesday. �The Indianapolis Indians' first game, against the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (Phillies) will be played in Clearwater, Florida at 1 pm. �In fact, all of their games are scheduled for 1 pm. �Here is a schedule of the Indians' spring training games. There is not always a lot of info about these games -- it can be hit-or-miss. Looking at two pitching prospects today: Tony Watson is making a come-back this season after missing most of 2009 to elbow problems. �The southpaw was the Pirates' 9th round pick in the 2007 draft, and he finished out the 2007 season with 10 starts at State College (6-1 record, 2.52 ERA) and 3 starts at A level Hickory (1-1, 3.86 ERA). �He made an amazing 28 starts for A+ Lynchburg in 2008, for 151.2 innings. �His won-loss record was not great (8-12), but his ERA was not bad at 3.56. �He allowed 149 hits, 60 earned runs, and only 36 walks, while striking out 104 batters. �Watson was promoted to AA Altoona to begin 2009, where he was the Opening Day starter. �He struggled through 5 starts over April and the first week of May. �In the best of the five, he pitched 5 innings and allowed 3 runs on 6 hits; in the worst, he didn't make it out of the 1st inning and allowed 4 runs on 4 hits. �Those starts gave him 15.1 innings, 22 hits, and 14 earned runs, with 11 walks and 14 strikeouts, and a 8.22 ERA. �Watson went onto the Disabled List with elbow strain, and missed the rest of the Curve's season. �He worked hard to rehab, though, and in the fall, the Pirates sent the Iowa native to the Arizona Fall League so that he could get in some more work. �Watson pitched 12.2 innings of relief in 11 appearances for the Scottsdale Scorpions, where he did very well. �He did not get any decisions or saves, but he earned a 2.13 ERA, with 3 runs on 7 hits and 6 walks, plus 12 strikeouts. �Batters only managed a .152 average against him. �Most of his appearances were one inning in length, though he had two 2-inning outings and one where he pitched only 0.2 innings. �Watson should be ready to go for the 2010 season, and he'll get to try again for the Curve. �No word as to whether the Pirates plan to put the nearly-25-year-old back in the starting rotation or have him in the bullpen. �Relieving in the AFL may just have been convenience, or an attempt to ease him back into some innings. Michael Dubee is a 24-year-old right-handed pitcher who was drafted by the Phillies in the 18th round of the 2006 draft -- the organization where his dad is the major league pitching coach. �He finished the 2006 season and began the 2007 season in the Phillies system, then was traded to the White Sox. �Dubee finished 2007 with the White Sox A level team and pitched the entire 2008 season with their A+ team in Winston-Salem. �For W-S, he made 13 starts and 17 relief appearances, for a 5-7 record and one save, and a 4.37 ERA over 103 innings. �The righty returned to W-S to begin the 2009 season, but after just 2 appearances (3 innings), he was traded to the Pirates and assigned to A+ Lynchburg. �Dubee made 23 relief appearance and over 34.1 innings, he mowed down the Carolina League batters. �He allowed 22 hits and 3 walks for 4 earned runs and a 1.05 ERA, with 2 wins and 6 saves. �He also struck out 52 batters (12.8 K/9 innings). �That earned him a promotion to Altoona in June, where he made 26 relief appearances for the Curve. �He did not allow any earned runs in his first 3 outings (5 innings) at the end of June. �In July, �Dubee made 12 relief appearances and gave up 4 earned runs on 21 hits and 5 walks in 15.2 innings (2.30 ERA). �Things got tougher for him in August, when he gave up 7 runs on 11 hits in 10.2 innings (9 outings), and his ERA popped up to 5.91 for the month. �But, he finished the season well, with three scoreless appearances over the last week of the season (5.2 innings), and only 3 hits (all in the middle of those games) with 6 strikeouts. �He finished his time in Altoona with a solid 2.91 ERA and a 3-0 record over 34 innings. �Dubee will likely return to Altoona to begin 2010, but if he continues to pitch as well as he did in 2009, he could move up to Indianapolis mid-season.

Phillies 5, �Pirates 1 �(box) A Pennsylania match-up did not go the Pirates way this afternoon in Bradenton. �The Pirates were again held to just 4 hits in the game, and they could only push one run across the plate. �That run came in the 2nd inning, when C Ryan Doumit doubled, and LF Lastings Milledge slipped a single behind the runner to bring Doumit across the plate. �That was the only run that anyone has scored off Phils starter Roy Halliday so far in Grapefruit League play. �CF Andrew McCutchen singled and 2B Delwyn Young continued his hitting streak (though not his 3-game home run streak) with a single. �Young and DH Aki Iwamura were the only batters to reach on a walk. �The Phillies turned 3 double plays, so that the Pirates had only 2 runners left on base for the entire game. Zach Duke pitched 3.2 innings in this start, and allowed a run on 2 hits and 3 walks, with 4 strikeouts. �He worked his way out of a small jam in the 1st inning. �In the 4th, he found himself with runners on the corners and one out. �He walked the next batter to load the bases, and a sacrifice fly brought in the runner from third to tie the game. �Evan Meek came in from the bullpen and ended that inning by getting a ground out. �But then Meek got into some trouble of his own in the 5th inning. �He gave up 4 hits, including an RBI double and two RBI singles, and also committed a balk, giving the Phillies a 4-1 lead. �Reliever Jeremy Powell pitched 2 innings and allowed two hits, though one of those was a solo home run in the 7th inning. �Javier Lopez and Jack Taschner each pitched a scoreless inning to finish up the game. Also getting some playing time: �CF John Raynor, PH/DH Pedro Alvarez, LF Jose Tabata, 1B Steve Pearce, 3B Neil Walker, 2B Doug Bernier, and SS Chase d'Arnaud.