Spring Training Gameday 15: Pirates travel to Lakeland to face Tigers with Luis Ortiz on the mound
The Pirates played two games on Friday, winning one and tying the other. Andrew McCutchen and Ke’Bryan Hayes each went deep, extending the team’s lead in home runs this spring.
They head on the road on Saturday to face the Detroit Tigers, with Matt Manning expected to take the mound for the home team.
Luis Ortiz will continue his attempt to earn a rotation spot with another start. He showed some encouraging signs in his last start against Tampa Bay but still showed some control issues towards the end of his outing.
The Pirates are now 6-7-1 this spring and have 17 games left before the regular season starts. First pitch is expected at 1:05 pm ET.
Pirates Lineup
Coming Soon…
Expected Pitchers
Luis Ortiz
Yesterday’s Feature
The rosters for the Spring Breakout game against the prospects in the Baltimore Orioles system were announced on Thursday. I broke down the Pirates' roster and some names to watch.
Today’s Feature
All the attention goes to Paul Skenes’ fastball for just cause, but it was something else that really stood in his last appearance against the Tampa Bay Rays. I go over his two-inning appearance from this past Monday.
Brault is good, I actually think that he could do play by play.
“Don’t put any stock in ‘em at all,” Shelton said. “... Our guys are taking good swings, but the little things are why we’re going to be successful offensively.”
That's from a Alex Stumpf article on mlb.com/pirates where they are basically saying they haven't hit a lot of home runs the past few years because they were playing small ball, lol. If he thinks all the fundamental blunders in running the bases and failing at bunting is part of their attempt at small ball then he needs to realize they are really fucking bad at it, lol.