Pirates Prospect Watch: Flowers Lone Bright Spot Tuesday

On Tuesday, Oct 31, The Salt River Rafters faced the Mesa Solar Sox. Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Jack Brannigan (SS) was the lone starter for Salt River. 

In addition, J.C. Flowers pitched in relief for Salt River. 

Monday night, Salt River lost in walk-off fashion and looked to get back above .500. Unfortunately, the Rafters lost to the Solar Sox despite a valiant comeback effort. 

Salt River scored three runs in the top of the eighth inning to make it an 8-7 game but fell short in the ninth inning. In addition, the Rafters had runners on second and third with nobody out and couldn’t get home either run.

Salt River’s record is now 12-13, and sits 3.5 games back of first place in the Arizona Fall League. 

Brannigan

Brannigan’s woeful fall league continued Tuesday night, going 0-4 with a walk and a strikeout. In addition, Brannigan came to the plate in the top of the ninth inning as Salt River’s final hope. 

The Notre Dame product swung at the first pitch he saw and grounded out to first baseman TT Bowens, and the game ended with Salt River losing 8-7. 

Brannigan’s slash line now sits at .154/.291/.323 with an OPS of .614. In addition, Brannigan has now started 19 games at shortstop for Salt River, which surpasses his 18 starts in Greensboro.  

Flowers

Pittsburgh Pirates pitching prospect J.C. Flowers came into the game during the fifth inning and had a fairly clean inning of work. The lone runner flowers allowed was a five-pitch, one-out walk to Benjamin Cowles.

In addition, Flowers got TT Bowens to fly out, John Rhodes to pop out, and struck out Miguel Palma. Flowers halted three straight innings of at least one run scoring for the Solar Sox. 

In his inning of work, Flowers threw 11 pitches (six for strikes). In addition, Flowers’ final line read 1.0 innings pitched, no hits, no runs, one walk, and a strikeout.