In our daily Wake-Up Call, we get you ready for the day with a complete look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates.
As the Pittsburgh Pirates now have Opening Day in their sights, several players are making their final pushes for the trip north.
Some are fighting for a spot, while others are fighting for an expanded role on the 25-man. For today’s Wake Up Call, we will highlight a few of these pushes and take stock of where their battle currently lies.
Jose Osuna
Going into Bradenton, many had thought that the Pittsburgh Pirates’s acquisition of option-less Bryce Brentz would ensure the club would take the potentially powerful Brentz north. Osuna would have seemed to be the odd man out, but he has not taken that label sitting down.
Osuna is 11-for-34 in 17 games this spring, and has shown an ability to put together solid plate appearances. He has shown well enough at third base between winter ball and the few spring cameos at the hot corner. The Pittsburgh Pirates won’t ask him to play there often, but can be reassured that he is not a total disaster at the position.
At this point, Osuna clearly has the leg up on Brentz, but might not have such a leg on someone like Max Moroff. Later today we’ll be stating Moroff’s case for an Opening Day spot.
Steven Brault
Brault has long been thought of as the default Pittsburgh Pirates long-man option in the bullpen. However, the southpaw has been excellent across 10.1 Spring Training innings — and that was before yesterday’s four scoreless innings — with batters hitting just .176 against him.
While he is still likely to be the odd-man out on a starting rotation spot, Brault has shown enough to give the Pirates great pause in even entertaining the idea of breaking camp without him.
Mitch Keller
Our last entry in this exercise is a bit out of the box.
Keller made his much anticipated 2018 Spring Training debut yesterday and dazzled, striking out three in two clean innings of work.
Pirates prospect @mkeller11 with a nice spring debut for the Bucs as he allows just one hit over 2.0 scoreless with 3⃣ punchouts. pic.twitter.com/SmZ7P5WnX6
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 18, 2018
We include Keller here, as any highlight-reel worthy outings from Keller combined with raving reports from Clint Hurdle and other Pittsburgh Pirates brass should push him towards starting the 2018 season at Triple-A Indianapolis.
And if that happens, and Keller excels there…well, it is not unfathomable to think of Keller as a starting pitching depth option ready to go by mid-season.
And that possibility should have Pittsburgh Pirates fans very excited.
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Baseball talk on the web
- Jose Altuve signed an updated version of the Joey Votto deal, says Fangraphs.
- Hardball Talk has an Atlanta Braves preview.
- Adam Berry of MLB.com has some followup to Keller’s impressive debut,
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