Pirates Prospect Watch: Po-Yu Chen Shoves; Marcano Extends Hitting Streak

Saturday night was a fun night for some of these Pirates’ prospects. Endy Rodriguez continued to stay hot, Tucupita Marcano extended his hitting streak, and Quinn Priester continued to shove in Altoona. Sunday night, some Pirates‘ prospects ended their week’s worth of games on a high note, including a very young pitcher in Single-A.

Let’s head on down to the farm and see which prospects earned some recognition.

Indianapolis Indians

INF/OF Tucupita Marcano

• Game: 3 for 5 and extended his hitting streak to 10 games
• Season at Triple-A: .362/.433/.500 with an OPS of .933 in 58 at-bats

RHP Roansy Contreras

• Game: three innings pitched, four hits, one earned run, no walks, and five strikeouts
• Season at Triple-A: 25.1 innings pitched, 18 hits, 12 walks, 31 strikeouts, and a 2.84 ERA

Indianapolis beat Toledo by a score of 4-1. Marcano stayed on his white-hot run, along with Travis Swaggerty going 2 for 4 with a walk. Contreras continued his path back to the majors with three strong innings of work.

Altoona Curve

OF Fabricio Macias

• Game: 2 for 4 with three RBIs and a homer
• Season at Double-A: .303/.313/.474 with an OPS of .787 in 76 at-bats

C/INF/OF Blake Sabol

• Game: 2 for 4 with an RBI
• Season: .268/.343/.470 with an OPS of .813 in 287 at-bats

Altoona wound up being part of a low-scoring football-type game against Akron. The Curve lost 14-6 after their bullpen gave up a combined 13 runs, six of them getting charged to Bear Bellomy.

Greensboro Grasshoppers

INF Dariel Lopez

• Game: 3 for 4 with two RBIs
• Season: .284/.347/.452 with an OPS of .824 in 320 at-bats

INF  Francisco Acuna

• Game: 1 for 4 with a homer
• Season: .255/.354/.409 with an OPS of .763 in 137 at-bats

This was genuinely a hard game to pick top performers from as Greensboro lost 8-4 to Winston-Salem. Lopez was the only Grasshoppers player with multiple hits, and the pitching staff got tagged from the starter to the bullpen.

Bradenton Marauders

RHP Po-Yu Chen

• Game: seven innings pitched, one hit, no earned runs, one walk, and five strikeouts
• Season: 79 innings pitched, 63 hits, 29 walks, 86 strikeouts, and a 4.33 ERA

INF/OF Jase Bowen

• Game: 2 for 4 with two homers and two RBIs
• Season: .278/.358/.450 with an OPS of .808 in 342 at-bats

The story of the game was Chen’s seven nearly flawless innings of shutout ball. Chen finished July with an ERA of 2.39 and seven walks in 26.1 innings. Bowen continued to show his power with two homers as Bradenton defeated Lakeland 5-1.