Morning Rundown: Geovanny Planchart and Kervin Pichardo hit home run for Scottsdale
Morning Rundown: Geovanny Planchart and Kervin Pichardo hit home run for Scottsdale
Power surge for Pirates hitters in Arizona
Geovanny Planchart and Kervin Pichardo hit home runs
Recap by John Dreker
The Scottsdale Scorpions hosted the Peoria Javelinas on Wednesday evening for the 13th game of the Arizona Fall League season. Two Pittsburgh Pirates were in the starting lineup. Kervin Pichardo batted fifth and manned second base. Catcher Geovanny Planchart batted ninth. Brandan Bidios and Sammy Siani would both enter the game later.
Pichardo had a chance for some early run production when he came up with two men on base in the first. His ground out to third base ended the inning. Planchart started the scoring for the game, driving a single to center field to make it 1-0. Pichardo extended the lead with a monster two-run homer in the third frame. The ball traveled 439 feet, with a 108 MPH exit velocity. Planchart picked up his second single in the fourth inning.
Pichardo popped out to shortstop in the fifth inning. Planchart struck out swinging in the sixth inning.
Bidois came out for the seventh inning. The first batter he faced worked a nine-pitch walk. A stolen base and wild pitch on a second walk moved the runner to third base. Bidois got the next batter to hit into a double play, which brought home the runner from third. He got a strikeout to end the inning. Limited pitch data shows that he threw ten strikes on 20 pitches. He has seven walks and seven strikeouts in four innings this fall.
Pichardo flew out to center field to end the seventh inning. Planchart hit a line drive single into right field in the eighth inning to load the bases. That was after Peoria took a lead in the top of the inning. Scottsdale was unable to capitalize on the situation, so they went to the ninth inning trailing 9-5.
Sammy Siani came on as a defensive replacement in the top of the ninth. He played in center field. Pichardo singled in the ninth then scored on a two-run homer by Drew Gilbert. Planchart picked up his fourth hit in a big spot, slugging a two-run homer with two outs in the ninth to make it an 11-10 game in favor of Peoria. Siani followed him with a single in his first at-bat of the night. The game ended one batter later when Jett Williams struck out for the fourth time.
Pichardo finished 2-for-5 with two runs and three RBIs. He now has a .286 average and a 1.019 OPS through 25 plate appearances. Planchart finished 4-for-5 with one run and three RBIs. He is now hitting .389/.450/.778 in 20 plate appearances. He allowed three more steals on Wednesday, leaving him 1-for-14 in throwing out runners, to go along with four errors in five games.
Scottsdale lost 11-10, dropping them to a 5-8 record. The Scorpions will head out on the road to take on the Mesa Solar Sox (7-6) on Thursday evening at 4:30 PM EST.
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I see Planchart didn't merit a mention in the catchers prospects write-up last week. He's 23 and has been in the system since 2019. He's made it up to Greensboro, but doesn't seem like much of a prospect and I would think he'll be a minor league free agent soon. Are they hoping to make him a prospect at this stage or is this AFL assignment a courtesy to let him showcase for other teams?
Really enjoyed the discussion yesterday regarding the projected 2025 budget for players. I know we have the Nutting/BC track record, but with the positive attention brought to the Pirates from the 2024 adds of Paul Skenes and Jared Jones, and Bubba Chandler and Thomas Harrington nearly ready at AAA, could the Pirate management see this as the perfect time to bump the budget to help bring in a middle-of-the order bat or two?