Pirates Prospect Watch: Death, Taxes, Endy Rodriguez Homering

It’s starting to sound like a broken record at this point, but Endy Rodriguez homered again for the Altoona Curve on Friday night. The 22-year-old has been all kinds of impressive since his promotion to Double-A on both sides of the ball.

In addition to blasting another longball, Rodriguez caught an attempted base stealer, the seventh time he’s done that with Altoona.

Rodriguez highlighted the top performers from Friday night’s action in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ farm system. Here are the prospects who had notable performances.

Indianapolis Indians (65-60)

INF Hoy Park

• Game: 3 for 5 with two doubles and a run
• Season: .225/.332/.356, 11 doubles, eight home runs, 28 RBIs, 12 steals, 76 games

C/OF Blake Sabol

• Game: 1 for 3 with a home run, three RBIs, a run and a walk
• Season: .300/.417/.600, one home run, three RBIs, three games

Park and Sabol led the charge on a big night at the plate for the Indians in their 8-7 win over the Louisville Bats. For Sabol, it was his first longball since his promotion to Triple-A.

Travis Swaggerty tripled for one of his two hits and Ji-hwan Bae doubled, drove in a run and scored twice. Travis MacGregor struck out five in two perfect innings of relief.

Altoona Curve (61-62)

C Endy Rodriguez

• Game: 1 for 3 with a home run, an RBI, two runs and a walk
• Season: .361/.459/.806, eight doubles, eight home runs, 21 RBIs, 19 games

1B Aaron Shackelford

• Game: 1 for 4 with a home run, two RBIs and a run
• Season: .250/.323/.528, 22 doubles, one triple, 25 home runs, 75 RBIs, 99 games

The Curve dipped back to a game below .500 with their 8-4 loss to the Akron RubberDucks. The good news is Rodriguez continued his torrid pace since his promotion to Double-A.

Shackelford slugged his 25th home run on the season. Second baseman Nick Gonzales doubled, as did outfielder Connor Scott, who drove in a run.

Greensboro Grasshoppers (55-66)

RHP Domingo Gonzalez

• Game: 4.0 innings, three hits, one run, five strikeouts
• Season: 9-3, 5.06 ERA, 99.2 innings, 96 hits, 42 walks, 98 strikeouts, 27 games/11 starts

1B Abrahan Gutierrez

• Game: 2 for 4 with a double, an RBI, a run and a walk
• Season: .259/.356/.413, 20 doubles, 12 home runs, 56 RBIs, four steals, 103 games

Thanks in part to a strong performance out of the bullpen from Gonzalez, the Grasshoppers beat the Winston-Salem Dash 7-1. In the win, Gutierrez was on base three times, including a double and an RBI.

Infielders Ernny Ordonez and Jackson Glenn each collected a pair of hits for Greensboro.

Bradenton Marauders (64-59)

2B Termarr Johnson

• Game: 1 for 4
• Season: .348/.407/.478, three doubles, two RBIs, eight games

LHP Jake Sweeney

• Game: 1.1 innings, no hits, no runs, one walk, three strikeouts
• Season: 1-0, 3.53 ERA, 35.2 innings, 28 hits, 21 walks, 39 strikeouts

Not much to take away from Bradenton in its 4-0 shutout loss to the Fort Myers Mighty Muscles. Johnson extended his hitting streak to four games.

Sweeney got three of four outs on strikeouts.