Prospect Watch: Sean Sullivan Throws Five Shutout Innings

Dec 29, 2023

Indianapolis got thrashed again, Altoona had a late comeback and Greensboro was rained out.

Prospect Watch: Strong Start from Bubba Chandler; Henry Davis Homers

Pirates 2023 Minor League Previews: Indianapolis Indians

INDIANAPOLIS VS COLUMBUS

Final Score: Columbus 7, Indianapolis (9-15) 0Indianapolis Starter: Quinn PriesterPitching Line: 4.2 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 5 KBox Score

Top Performers:

Game Recap:

Indianapolis continued its disappointing season with a 7-0 loss to Columbus.

Quinn Priester started well, throwing four shutout innings, but he couldn't get out of the fifth. He left with two outs, two runs in and two runners on. Cam Alldred came in and let both of those runners score, then three of his own before finally getting an out. The seven runs were all the scoring in the game. Priester's ERA stands at 7.78. Angel Perdomo worked one scoreless inning and Hunter Stratton two.

The offense didn't show. Indy had three hits, singles by Josh Palacios, Aaron Shackelford and Chavez Young. They also had five walks.

Pirates 2023 Minor League Previews: Altoona Curve

ALTOONA @ READING

Final Score: Altoona (9-8) 3, Reading 2Altoona Starter: Sean SullivanPitching Line: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 6 KBox Score

Top Performers:

Game Recap:

Down 1-0, Altoona rallied for three runs in the ninth and held on to beat Reading, 3-2.

Sean Sullivan kept his ERA at 0.00 through three starts, fanning six in five innings. He gave up four hits and two walks. Nick Dombkowski followed that with two scoreless frames. Neither team scored until Tyler Samaniego gave up a run in the bottom of the eighth on a walk, a ground out and a single.

Altoona had chances to score on the strength of eight hits and seven walks, but they couldn't take advantage. Matt Gorski had a rough day, going 0-for-5 and stranding seven runners.

In the ninth, the Curve finally got on the board. Starting with the last of Mason Martin's three walks, they loaded the bases with nobody out. Connor Scott tied the game with a sacrifice fly, then Altoona loaded the bases back up. With two out, Henry Davis walked to force in the go-ahead run and Domingo Leyba brought in another with an infield hit.

Tahnaj Thomas had trouble in the bottom of the ninth, walking the first two batters and allowing a run on a single. He got a break in the end, though, in the form of a line drive double play.

Leyba and Jacob Gonzalez each had two hits. Davis had a single and two walks.

Pirates 2023 Minor League Previews: Greensboro Grasshoppers

GREENSBORO VS ROME

Final Score: PostponedGreensboro Starter:Pitching Line:Box Score

Top Performers:

Game Recap:

Greensboro's game with Rome was postponed. It’ll be made up as part of a doubleheader tomorrow.

Pirates 2023 Minor League Previews: Bradenton Marauders

BRADENTON @ DUNEDIN

Final Score: Dunedin 9, Bradenton (11-7) 5Bradenton Starter: Alessandro Ercolani Pitching Line: 3 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 KBox Score

Top Performers:

Game Recap:

Bradenton had a ninth-inning rally terminated by rain and lost to Dunedin, 9-5.

Starter Alessandro Ercolani deserved better. Misplays by his defense — two misjudged fly balls and a dropped one — turned into three extra base hits and cost him three earned runs. He could have ended up with three scoreless innings.

Carlos Lomeli followed and had a lot of trouble throwing strikes. He still could have managed two scoreless innings, but Termarr Johnson threw the ball away on an easy, 20-foot throw to first, letting in two runs with two outs. That put the Marauders down 5-0.

Bradenton's hitters meanwhile were being blown away by an overage pitcher named Rafael Sanchez. He retired the first 16 batters he faced and ended up fanning 11 over five and two thirds innings.

Nick Cimillo singled in the sixth to become the first baserunner. Bradenton got four in the inning to close within a run, one each on a wild pitch and an error, then two on a double by Rodolfo Nolasco.

Ryan Harbin held the line with two scoreless innings, but Darvin Garcia blew up the game in the eighth, allowing four runs.

The Marauders still had a shot in the ninth. They got a run and loaded the bases with nobody out on a leadoff double by Shalin Polanco and three walks. With the tying run at the plate, the rains came and the game was declared over. Very minor league, and not in a good way.

Johnson had a dismal game. Apart from the error, he had two other defensive misplays. (Bradenton was charged with only the one error, but several others should have been scored that way.) He also went 0-for-3 with a walk, and after the walk he got picked off second while representing the tying run.

The Marauders had only four hits. Cimillo reached three times on the single and two walks.

Having followed the Pirates fanatically since 1965, Wilbur Miller is one of the fast-dwindling number of fans who’ve actually seen good Pirate teams. He's even seen Hall-of-Fame Pirates who didn't get traded mid-career, if you can imagine such a thing. His first in-person game was a 5-4, 11-inning win at Forbes Field over Milwaukee (no, not that one). He's been writing about the Pirates at various locations online for over 20 years. It has its frustrations, but it's certainly more cathartic than writing legal stuff. Wilbur is retired and now lives in Bradenton with his wife and three temperamental cats.

looking over the minor league hitters batting averages, outside of a handful of players, it is horrible. I don't want to single anyone out but it hurts to look at those box scores.

What is up with Priester? Sure his fastball is hit able but so was Kellers? What did Keller do to change that outcome and why hasn't Prierster been given some advice as to how to make it move more? From the best high school pitcher available in that draft outside of Malone (who never plays) what the hell happened?

Keller converted to 2seamers and sliders, which is precisely what Quinn is doing.

To be determined if it's good enough.

Uh oh…Quinn's fastball averaged under 92mph last night…

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?date=4/27/2023&gamePk=723601&chartType=pitch&legendType=pitchName&playerType=pitcher&inning=&count=&pitchHand=&batSide=&descFilter=&ptFilter=&resultFilter=&hf=playerBreakdown&sportId=11#723601

What in the heck is goin’ on with Malcom Nunez.

Luis Oviedo coming out of Cleveland's AAA pen last night. Man did I miss on that one.

Nothing going right at Indy. Rapidly descending from disappointing to disaster

Is this a game to be concerned about for Termarr? Is this a sign of anything else? Getting picked off, a ridiculous error on an easy throw, and 3 k's? That is quite the trifecta!

I know it's My Thing lately, but I think we tend to forget how immature we all were in our late teens and early 20s especially in light of this urge to push them up the chain extremely aggressively.

Takes an immense amount of focus/discipline/maturity to keep the switch turned on, and that often comes with time. Normal kid, figuring it out.

I teach high school and mostly seniors so I see this every day. It is a good point to be reminded of though.

bless your heart. 😉

In 93 PAs, he has walked 19 times, but he has also struck out 26 times!!

I am getting tired of these highly regarded hitting prospects that we draft #1 becoming K machines. 😞😞😞

Hopefully, he will turn it around. After all, he’d only be a freshman in college, but it is a bit disheartening. Long way to go. If he is still hitting below .200 in 2 years, THEN I would be concerned.

You need to get used to K% over 20. It's the new norm for anyone hoping to get high exit velocities. Order of operations is 1) exit velocities UP 2) BB% UP 3) K% DOWN

I think you’re wildly overstating this.

Only a third of the top 30 hitters in baseball last year posted a K-rate over 20%.

Mediocre hitters accept velocity-contact tradeoffs but the upper tier guys – the one's Lee is talking about – don't drastically sacrifice contact while hunting contact quality.

Btw how did you define the top 30 hitters?

For example, was Mike Trout one of them?

I consider wRC+ the best metric for hitter quality, so I sorted top to bottom and pulled the first 30.

Thanks!

Phrases like disheartening, asking if it's time to get worried about Johnson. The panic on this site by posters who take a bad game or a couple of bad games and twist themselves into anguished pretzels is exhausting. The kid has played FOUR games this year. Get ahold of yourselves.

Not panicking……just not happy at his start. Big difference, but I guess that didn't come thru in my post. Did my last paragraph not state that?

I think using disheartened and saying that you’re sick of #1 picks being K machines kinda overpowered it, Lee. Fair enough. As wonderful as the big club has been this year, it's been a different story in the minors…so far.

I know I am viewed as being negative, but when 7 of 10 Top 10 prospects historically fail, one gets jaded after awhile. Any little false starts tends to fuel that for me.

Perhaps I need to quit commenting and keep those years of failures off this board?

No I don't think you need to keep failures off the board. Personally I find it better for my own sanity to let a first year pro get his initial year underway before we get some opinions. Guys like Priester and Nicky Sticks who are struggling massively? Different story.

Priester and Gonzales have already had success in the minors

Not yet the case with Termarr

BTW Neto looks pretty strong thus far

https://piratesprospects.com/2022/07/final-mock-drafts-from-mlb-pipeline.html

And over reactions to supposed over-reactions too. Ease up. I was asking questions, not making assertions. I am not there to see him play. As was mentioned in the article it was a dismal showing, but, yes, it was one game, and he has only played four, this year, but a concentration of bad outcomes like that in one game does warrant a question from such a vaunted prospect, but I am hardly writing him off or labeling him a "bust". Two of those errors, getting picked off and muffing a little league throw make me wonder if he is focused enough, and again, that is a question, not an assertion nor a conclusion.

I’ll be ease up, if you’re willing to acknowledge that it's tiring, to read the roller coaster of comments that go with great or terrible individual games by prospects especially since he's just getting back from an injury and has played few games.

That "asking questions" simply doesn't apply yet. Way too few games.

It is the nature of fans (short for fanatics) to go up and down over the fortunes of their players. Surely, you should know that by now.

Some of the stuff last night isn't that noteworthy on its own. The defense, though, looked bad. I didn't write everything up.He didn't go well to his left on a couple grounders beyond the one he threw away. Popups were rough, too. One of the "extra base hits" off Ercolani was a popup to shallow center that Termarr overran by literally 10-15 yards. Two batters later there was a popup to shallow right. It was Termarr's play, but he looked rattled. Polanco had to sprint in from RF to catch it.

Oh great! Now I AM disheartened!! 😂😂😂😂

Appreciate the context and details. Wilbur, you watch a ton of games at this level. Does what you described catch your eye at all, or is it fairly normal for this levell?

He's still very young. Rookie ball is probably a better comp. Lots of defensive tomfoolery there.