Losers of twelve of their last thirteen games, the Pirates hope for a fresh start tonight as they debut their “City Connect” uniforms. Joe Block has a preview.
MLB Pipeline’s latest top 100 prospects list, released yesterday, has five Pirates players on it. They are led by last year’s top pick, second baseman Termarr Johnson, who is ranked number thirty. The Bradenton infielder has fallen four spots since the January rankings after missing a large part of the season with a hamstring injury. Henry Davis, who is now with the Pirates, moved up 26 spots, to number 31. Fellow catching prospect Endy Rodriguez, currently with Indianapolis, is up 16 spots to number 39. He was chosen yesterday to play in the All-Star Futures Game next month. Indianapolis pitcher Quinn Priester moved up three spots to number 57 in the rankings. And debuting in the top 100, at number 100, is Altoona left-hander Anthony Solometo, the 20-year-old 2021 second round draft pick who is sporting a 1.80 ERA with the Curve after his first two starts.
NCAA
The Men’s College World Series wrapped up last night with the LSU Tigers clobbering Florida, 18-4 to win the national championship. It’s of interest to Pirates fans because the top three prospects in this year’s draft play for those two teams. Number one ranked Dylan Crews, a center fielder for LSU, won this year’s Golden Spikes Award as the top player in college baseball. He was 4-for-6 last night with a triple.
The number two prospect is LSU pitcher Paul Skenes, who did not pitch in the three-game championship series but was nonetheless named the College World Series Most Outstanding Player for his two starts, in which he gave up two runs to Tennessee in seven-and-two-thirds innings while striking out twelve, and he shut out top-ranked Wake Forest over eight innings, striking out nine.
The third-ranked draft prospect is Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford, who was 7-for-13 in the World Series with two homers and three doubles. One of his home runs in the tournament traveled 456 feet and another went 449 feet. He hit a two-run home run last night in the first inning.
The Pirates will have the first overall selection in the draft this year.
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