The Pirates’ losing streak is at five after the Bucs took a pounding again yesterday from the Braves.
Joe Block reports.
The Pirates are off today and travel to Philadelphia to open a three-game series against the Phillies tomorrow night.
Rookie Oneil Cruz set a Major League record yesterday with the hardest hit ball of the StatCast era, which goes back to 2015. His line drive off the right field wall in the third inning was clocked at 122.4 miles per hour, topping a 122.2 mile per hour home run by Miami’s Giancarlo Stanton in 2017 and tied by Stanton with the Yankees last year. Cruz’s ball was hit so hard that it bounced off the 21-foot high Clemente Wall at PNC Park and he was held to a single.
Reliever Colin Holderman was removed from the game yesterday with right shoulder discomfort after he hit the Braves’ Austin Riley with a 98-mile-per-hour fastball. Holderman is listed as day-to-day.
Major League Baseball has released the 2023 schedules for all 30 teams. The Pirates will open the season at Cincinnati on March 30th and then travel to Boston to face the Red Sox. After that, the home opener will be on April 3rd against the White Sox, and then the Astros will visit PNC Park. Three of the first four Pirates’ series will be against American League teams, as all thirty MLB teams play every other team for the first time ever.
ALTOONA
Third baseman Jared Triolo had three hits, including a triple and a home run, but Altoona lost to Bowie, 7-5. Outfielder Fabricio Macias hit a three-run homer and catcher Endy Rodriguez extended his hitting streak to eleven games. He’s had a hit in every game since his promotion to Altoona. Carmen Mlodzinski gave up four runs in three-and-a-third innings pitched.
Right-hander Aaron Shortridge pitches for the Curve tonight in the series’ third game.
