After an off day and a flight to California, the Pirates open a six-game West Coast road trip tonight. Joe Block previews tonight’s action.
After the three games in Anaheim, the Pirates will make the 95-mile trip to San Diego to play three against the Padres.
The Pirates have signed second round supplemental draft pick Zander Mueth a high school pitcher, for $1.8 million. That’s about $572,000 over slot value. The 67th overall pick in the draft, Mueth is a low arm-slot right-hander with a heavy sinker and a “plus” slider.
Mueth’s signing leaves only one of the top eleven Pirates picks unsigned: ninth rounder Danny Carrion, a right-handed pitcher out of the University of California-Davis. Picks ten through fourteen are all signed, but the team has not come to terms with any of the final six picks, from rounds fifteen through twenty.
ALTOONA CURVE
Mason Martin hit a home run and walked three times to lead Altoona to a 4-3 win over Reading. Shortstop Tsung-Che Cheng had three hits and second baseman Domingo Leyba had two hits, including a double. Nick Dombkowski tossed four scoreless innings in relief of Beau Sulser and got the win.
Tonight, 20-year-old phenom Anthony Solometo pitches for the Curve in the series’ fourth game. The 2021 second round draft pick is 1-1 with a 2.37 ERA in his first four starts in Double-A.
LOW MINORS
If you want to keep an eye on a hot new name in the Pirates’ organization, watch left-hander Hunter Barco. The Bucs took him last year with the 42nd overall pick in the Draft, even though he’d just had Tommy John surgery. Barco finally made his debut in the Florida Complex League yesterday and threw two hitless, scoreless innings, striking out four and walking one.
