With the full-season minor league teams having every Monday off this year, we get to do weekly recaps based on the action from Tuesday to Sunday each week. Below you’ll find a list of the top hitters and pitchers for the Pittsburgh Pirates over the last week. The batters are sorted by OPS and they each had at least 18 plate appearances last week (I lowered it slightly because of rain outs wiping away too many games this past week). The pitchers are sorted by ERA and they pitched at least four innings.
Top Hitters
- Matthew Fraizer, Greensboro – Fraizer has been on fire for quite some time now. He has made this article five out of the last six weeks and this is the second time he’s been the best. He had a HUGE week last week, hitting .500/.636/1.375 in 22 PA’s, with four homers and five walks. He has a 1.015 season OPS and 15 homers.
- Mason Martin, Altoona – Martin had a week that would usually land someone in the top spot, batting .444/.524/1.000 in 21 PA’s. He landed the top spot last week with slightly lower numbers. He has a .962 OPS with 16 homers.
- Fabricio Macias, Indianapolis – This might be the most impressive name here because he was two levels lower in the system just last week. Macias hit .471/.471/.706 in 18 PA’s over five games. He has a season OPS of .889 in 49 games.
- Canaan Smith-Njigba, Altoona – He hit .333/.429/.500 in 21 PA’s last week, giving him a .799 season OPS. He’s 10-for-10 in stolen bases.
- Endy Rodriguez, Bradenton – He batted .353/.450/.471 in 20 PA’s last week. He had the ninth best week last week and he has an .805 season OPS.
- Jared Triolo, Greensboro – Triolo had a .300/.364/.500 slash line last week in 22 PA’s. He has a .737 OPS with 11 doubles, six homers and 11 steals this year.
- Hudson Head, Bradenton – He batted just .235, but he had a .435 OBP and a .471 slugging. That’s a similar disparity between average and results that he has put up all season, with a .208/.386/.399 slash line this year. Head has eight homers.
- Alexander Mojica, Bradenton – I almost didn’t lower the PA minimum because of Mojica’s week, but using 20 PA’s like normal would have had some very poor results at the end because barely anyone reached that mark. Mojica had two hits in 18 PA’s, but one was a homer and he walked six times, leading to a .167 average and an .861 OPS. He has a .695 season OPS.
- Matt Gorski, Greensboro – He hit .261/.320/.522 in 25 PA’s last week. He has nine homers and 11 steals, but has mostly struggled this year, with a .691 OPS and 72 strikeouts in 219 PA’s.
- Jonah Davis, Altoona – He batted .316/.350/.474 in 20 PA’s. He has a similar story to Gorski struggling with the strikeouts. A .740 OPS isn’t bad, but it comes with 71 strikeouts in 163 PA’s. His strikeouts-per-AB is over 50%.
Top Pitchers
- Beau Sulser, Indianapolis – He had the third best week last week, though I’ll note that he threw shutout ball so it couldn’t have been any better, since he finished the game as a reliever. After 5.1 shutout innings, he came back with a start of seven shutout innings on six hits, no walks and seven strikeouts. He has a 3.02 ERA in 56.2 innings, with 58 strikeouts.
- Logan Hofmann, Bradenton – He tossed six shutout innings on four hits, no walks and five strikeouts. He has a 2.13 ERA in 38 innings, with 51 strikeouts this season.
- Joelvis Del Rosario, FCL Pirates – He threw five no-hit innings on one walk and seven strikeouts. His first outing this year was two runs over three innings. He pitched two seasons in the DSL before this year.
- Mitch Keller, Indianapolis – He’s slowly returning to form in the minors, with this week showing a strong outing of five shutout frames on two hits, no walks and four strikeouts. He has a 1.84 ERA, a 1.02 WHIP and 16 strikeouts in 14.2 innings in the minors.
- Nick Garcia, Bradenton – He tossed five shutout frames on two hits, one walk and five strikeouts. Garcia has a 3.21 ERA in 33.2 innings, with 38 strikeouts, though the 1.51 WHIP is a bit high.
- Po-Yu Chen, FCL Pirates – Two starts, two appearances here for the top signing of the Pirates during the 2019-20 international signing period. This time he allowed an unearned run on one hit, no walks and seven strikeouts. Last week it was four shutout innings.
- Omar Cruz, Altoona – Not the best start here, but the end result was 4.2 shutout innings. He allowed three hits, walked four and struck out four batters. He has given up two earned runs in 15.1 innings since being promoted to Altoona.
- Darvin Garcia, FCL Pirates – Hard-throwing reliever had two shaky outings to start the season, then came back with four shutout innings on two hits, no walks and four strikeouts.
- Christian Charle, FCL Pirates – Another FCL relief appearance here, Charle threw four shutout innings on two hits, one walk and five strikeouts. He also made it here last week for his debut of four shutout innings.
- Luis Ortiz, Bradenton – He had a very nice start last week, setting a career high for strikeouts with nine, going six innings with one run on six hits and no walks. He has a 3.38 ERA in 37.1 innings, with 44 strikeouts.
