Morning Rundown: Quinn Priester struggles in last game of season
Allows four runs on 10 hits in 5.1 innings.
Looking back at things, it wasn’t the best of debuts for Quinn Priester this year. He wrapped up his 2023 season by allowing four runs on 10 hits and one walk across 5.1 innings pitched.
He worked one clean inning, in the fifth, that actually put him in position to get the sixth - but then immediately allowed the first two batters to reach base. After a sacrifice bunt by Jacob Stallings, Priester was pulled from the game, where a fielder’s choice and sacrifice fly allowed those runners to score.
Priester finished the season with a 7.74 ERA, allowing 43 earned runs in 50 innings pitched. He walked 27 (11.5 BB%), which isn’t ideal but definitely not the worst, but also struck out just 36 batters (15.3%).
At 23-years-old, and seeing the road that Mitch Keller took to get where he is at, Priester is far from done, but there is also a lot of work to be done.
Pirates play spoiler, by losing?
Ultimately each team is responsible for their own fate, but if there is any positive out of the Pirates losing the first two against the Marlins, it’s that the Cubs and Reds are now eliminated from the playoffs.
Neither did themselves any favors, but add in the fact the Pirates beat them both recent, and then lost to one of the teams they were fighting with for the final wild card spot, and it seems like the ultimate troll job.
Yes, Rookie SP Quinn Priester struggled in his last Start of the season. Just turned 23 two weeks ago, and logged 158 innings pitched between AAA and MLB this year. In 2021 he threw 98 innings and in 2022 he threw 97 innings, so just a mere 63% increase in arm usage from 2022 to 2023. He came out in the 6th inning last night after throwing 98 pitches. Sure, he could have been pulled after 5, and left the game tied at 2 for each team, but why try to find some sort of positive for this kid? That extra third of an inning and 10+ pitches must have been very important to somebody.
Got to give it to Priester, that kid has a lot of confidence, if you haven’t read his post game interview give it a go (PG).