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 17 plate appearances last week (I lowered it because of rain outs wiping away too many games and the FCL would have had no one if I used 20 plate appearance). The pitchers are sorted by ERA and they pitched at least four innings.
Top Hitters
- Norkis Marcos, FCL Pirates – He batted .333/.647/.667 in 17 plate appearances, reaching base 11 times. He had a .558 OPS in 40 games for Bradenton this year before being sent to the FCL once their season started.
- Jonah Davis, Altoona – One of two hitters to make this article last week and this week (both are Altoona outfielders). Davis hit .450/.476/.800 in 21 plate appearances, with a double and two homers. He has an .806 OPS this year, though it comes with 78 strikeouts in 184 plate appearances.
- Rayber Romero, FCL Pirates – He hit .538/.667/.538 in 18 plate appearances, reaching base 12 times. This is his first experience in the U.S. after debuting in the DSL in 2019.
- Josh Bissonette, Altoona – He’s getting a chance to play with Oneil Cruz injured, plus Rodolfo Castro was in the majors last week. He hit .500/.593/.545 in 27 plate appearances.
- Canaan Smith-Njigba, Altoona – He hit .353/.500/.588 in 22 plate appearances, with a double, homer and five walks. He had the fourth best week last week, and he has an .826 OPS in 56 games.
- Jasiah Dixon, FCL Pirates – He batted .429/.579/.500 last week, which is actually below his 1.100 OPS with the FCL Pirates. Dixon started the year in Bradenton, but struggled to get on base, which he is doing at a high rate now.
- Anthony Alford, Indianapolis – Alford hit .400/.455/.600 in 22 plate appearances. He has a .960 OPS in 42 games since being sent to Triple-A after going 2-for-24 with the Pirates.
- Bligh Madris, Indianapolis – He batted just .231 in 18 plate appearances, but it came with three walks, two doubles and a grand slam. He has a .732 OPS in 48 games in Triple-A this year.
- Dee Strange-Gordon, Indianapolis – He’s already with his fourth organization this year, but he did well in his first full week with the Pirates, putting up a .409/.409/.545 slash line in 22 plate appearances.
- Eli Wilson, Bradenton – Wilson has hit well all year and continued that last week with a .333/.529/.417 slash line in 17 plate appearances. He has a .989 OPS in 33 games this year.
Top Pitchers
- Colin Selby, Greensboro – He put together quite a line over his two relief appearances, going six shutout innings on one hit, no walks and eight strikeouts, facing one over the minimum. He has shown some control issues that we didn’t see prior, but he’s also returning from Tommy John surgery and was still basically in rehab mode when the season started. Selby has given up just 20 hits in 30.1 innings this year.
- Valentin Linarez, FCL Pirates – Linarez had an amazing outing on Saturday that earned him the Pitcher of the Week award for the FCL. The downside was that he did it against the other Pirates team in the league. He tossed five perfect innings and struck out ten batters. He was one of the top pitching prospects from the 2019 DSL Pirates.
- Carlos Jimenez, FCL Pirates – He allowed an unearned run over five innings despite not giving up a hit. He walked one and had six strikeouts. Jimenez was a top pitching prospect from the 2019 DSL Pirates, who has one of the best changeups in the system. His first appearance didn’t go well this season with five earned runs over 4.2 innings.
- Joelvis Del Rosario, FCL Pirates – The FCL Pirates saw three of the top four pitching performances last week, which is a bit impressive because they all came from pitchers making the jump from the DSL to a league that is now a mixture of three levels into one. Del Rosario tossed five shutout innings on five hits, no walks and four strikeouts. He had the third best pitching performance in last week’s article.
- Oliver Mateo, Bradenton – The hard-throwing Mateo had his best week last week, going 4.1 no-hit/scoreless innings, with four walks and ten strikeouts. Control has always been an issue with him, but his two relief appearances last week were impressive.
- Arlinthon De Dios, FCL Pirates – He tossed four shutout innings on two hits, one walk and one strikeout. Unlike the other FCL Pirates here, De Dios had prior U.S. experience, making ten starts in the GCL in 2019.
- Trey McGough, Altoona – McGough had an impressive start last week, giving up one run over seven innings, with four hits, no walks and four strikeouts. He has a 3.38 ERA in seven starts since being promoted to Altoona.
- Domingo Gonzalez, Bradenton – Gonzalez had a strong start last week, going six innings, with one run on four hits, no walks and ten strikeouts. He has a 4.25 ERA in 42.1 innings this year, with 63 strikeouts.
- Alex Manasa, Greensboro – In two relief outings, he allowed one run in 5.1 innings on four hits, no walks and seven strikeouts. He has a 5.06 ERA this season, with an 8.10 ERA in May and a 1.93 mark in June.
- Cam Vieaux, Altoona – In two starts this week, Vieaux allowed two runs over ten innings, with six hits, two walks and 13 strikeouts. With the new six-games-per-week schedule making it harder to accomplish, he was one of just two pitchers in the system to make two starts last week.
- Po-Yu Chen, FCL Pirates – I had to go to 12 spots to get everyone with the same ERA in the last spots this week. Chen allowed one run in five innings. It was the first run that the seven-figure signing has allowed in his pro career. In 14 innings he has a 19:0 SO/BB ratio. He has made this article for all three of his starts.
- Christian Charle, FCL Pirates – Charle also allowed one run over five innings last week. He did it on six hits, one walk and four strikeouts. He had a rough outing yesterday, but came into the day with one run allowed over 13 innings. He made last week’s article for four shutout innings and was here the prior week for his season debut.
