Cannonballs coming: Albert Baur goes deep twice

One news item: The Pirates have promoted (sub. req’d) right-hander J.T. Brubaker to Indianapolis.

— Indianapolis (14-14) lost to Louisville, 3-1. Starter Austin Coley gave up two runs, one earned, in five innings. The Indians had ten hits, but went 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position. Kevin Kramer and Jordan Luplow each went 2-3 with a walk. Austin Meadows was 0-5 and stranded the tying runs to end the game. Four days ago, Meadows was hitting .319, but he’s gone 1-for-15 since then to drop to .276.

Kevin Newman: 1-4, 2 errors
Jacob Stallings: 0-4
Chris Bostick: 0-3
Dovydas: IP, H, K
Bo Schultz: IP, H, R, 0 ER, BB, K

— Joe Musgrove’s second rehab outing went well, but Altoona (15-13) lost to Bowie, 2-0. Musgrove gave up a solo home run in four innings, along with just one other hit. He walked none, fanned four and needed only 34 pitches, of which 28 were strikes. Dario Agrazal followed and gave up just an unearned run over the last five innings. Agrazal also allowed two hits and no walks. He struck out two. The Altoona offense continued to struggle badly, getting just one hit, a double by Will Craig. The Bowie starter, former Pirate Jayson Aquino, was making his first appearance after getting demoted from AAA. Cole Tucker, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Jason Martin, Logan Hill, Stephen Alemais and Christian Kelley combined to go 0-for-19 with one walk and eight whiffs. Considering the number of early-round position player draft picks on this team, the Curve so far are not exactly an advertisement for the Pirates’ scouting of amateur hitters, especially when you add in Kevin Newman’s struggles. In fact, this bunch is a pretty strong argument that the Pirates’ scouts couldn’t distinguish Mario Mendoza from Roberto Clemente.

— Albert Baur (pictured) was the second Marauder to go deep twice in two days as Bradenton (18-13) beat Dunedin, 7-5. Baur finished 3-5 with three RBIs, and now has four HRs. Starter Cam Vieaux gave up three runs over six innings on five hits and two walks, with six strikeouts. Adrian Valerio was 1-5 and Bligh Madris 2-5.

— West Virginia (16-13) tied the first game of their doubleheader with Hickory in the bottom of the seventh, then won in the ninth, 4-3. The Power got a run in the seventh on an RBI single by Cal Mitchell to send the game into extra innings. After both teams failed to score in the eighth, Hickory scored a phony run in the ninth. The Power came back quickly when Chris Sharpe singled in the phony run, ended up on third on an outfield error, and scored on a walkoff sacrifice fly by Lolo Sanchez. Mitchell and Sharpe each finished 1-3, and Sanchez 2-3.

Oneil Cruz: 1-4
Mason Martin: 0-2 (removed for unknown reasons and didn’t play in game two)
Rodolfo Castro: 1-3, BB
Blake Weiman: 1.1 IP, 2 H, 3 K

I’m afraid I can’t make it to the end of the second game, which was tied 2-2 in the fifth. Dylan Busby had doubled in one West Virginia run. Travis MacGregor was getting hit around some, but had allowed only two runs and fanned six through five innings.