All Hands on Deck: Cam Vieaux with another scoreless outing for Altoona

By Brian Cartwright Aug 30, 2019, 6:17am EDT

Transactions

You might have thought there wouldn’t be anymore transactions this late in the season, but when the parent Pirates placed both RHP Chris Stratton and RHP Yefry Ramirez on the Disabled List, they needed to recall pitchers Montana DuRapau (1.83 ERA, 54 K’s in 44 ¹⁄₃ IP) and Parker Markel (1.74 ERA, 75 K’s in 41 ¹⁄₃ IP) to take their place.

Cascading downward, Altoona closer Matt Eckelman (3.81 ERA in 49 ²⁄₃ IP) was promoted to Indianapolis and RHP Shea Murray (4.46 ERA, 64 K’s in 40 ¹⁄₃ IP) was promoted from Bradenton to Altoona.

Murray had pitched only seven innings in four years at Ohio State, none his senior year, with an seventeen innings innings in a collegiate league after high school graduation and another seventeen in another league after his sophomore year in college. He was then drafted with 45 innings of work in five years, in which he’d issued 54 walks and struck out 58. Then he went to West Virginia last summer and walked sixteen in seven innings before being shut down. This year the K’s are up and the walks down to 31 in 40 innings, earning Murray a trip to Double-A.

Games

Triple-A

Indianapolis (65-71) falls 7-2 to visiting Toledo (65-71)

Five days after tossing six scoreless innings, Brandon Waddell (6-8, 6.42 ERA in 965 ¹⁄₃ IP) wasn’t able to sustain his success as he was blasted for three home runs in the second and third innings, surrendering six runs, five earned, on nine hits and a walk in just two and a third innings.

3N Ke’Bryan Hayes (263/333/415) was 1-for-3 with a walk.

Double-A

Altoona (69-67) sweeps with 3-2 win over visiting Akron (60-76)

Left-hander Cam Vieaux (8-6, 3.50 ERA in 139 IP) has been nearly untouchable since being returned to Altoona from Tripla-A Indianapolis, not allowing a run in four of five starts - and in that fifth start only gave up one hit, scoring three runs on one swing of the bat that resulted in a home run. Against Akron, Vieaux, carried a 1-0 through seven innings, fanning ten while walking three and surrendering just two hits.

SS Oneil Cruz (302/353/484) bounced back with a pair of singles and a walk, driving in a first inning run, then beat out a grounder to second to lead off the bottom of the eighth and came around to score on RF Bligh Madris’ (262/327/384) double.

3B Brett Pope and 1B Jerrick Suiter (238/280/303) also had a pair of hits.

In the four game series, Akron scored just one run in thirty innings off ltoona starting pitching.

High-A

Bradenton (73-62) wins 5-2 over visiting Palm Beach (57-73)

Gavin Wallace (5-8, 4.13 ERA in 109 IP) bounced back from a stretch of three straight poor outings , fanning eight with just one walk in six innings, allowing one run on four hits.

The Marauders trailed 1-0 from the first to the fifth when RF Daniel Amaral (278/357/353) singled in 3B Dylan Busby (213/316/453), who had doubled.

They tacked on four more in the seventh when CF Travis Swaggerty (265/347/381) walked with the bases loaded, then two pitches later 1B Mason Martin (254/351/558) cleared them off with a three-run double, giving him 129 RBI on the year.

Low-A

Greensboro (77-57) blanked 7-0 by visiting Rome (64-71)

Alex Manasa (9-5, 3.48 ERA in 139 ²⁄₃ IP) was tagged for two homers, accounting for three of the four runs he allowed in six innings. He fanned six while walking one and giving up six hits.

Short Season A

West Virginia (38-33) pulls out 5-4 victory in 10 innings over visiting Batavia (39-33)

Fighting for a playoff spot, the Black Bears came in a game and a half behind Batavia after their ten inning loss on Wednesday, and rebounded by defeating the first place Muckdogs in another ten inning contest.

Bear Bellomy (2.83 ERA in 41 ¹⁄₃ IP) tossed the first four innings, giving up two runs on five hits and a pair of walks, then Francis del Orbe (3.76 ERA, 43 K’s in 38 ¹⁄₃ IP) followed with three scoreless frames.

Down 3-0 in the bottom of the eighth, West Virginia got on the board when RF Blake Sabol (258/366/374) doubled with one out, went to third on an infield single and scored on a force at second.

They tied the score and sent it into extras when 2B Cory Wood (238/330/339) and 1B Will Matthiessen (222/313/326) slammed back-to-back homers with one out in the ninth.

Batavia plated their fake runner in the tenth on a sacrifice bunt and sacrifice fly, but the game wasn’t over yet. In the bottom of the inning 1B Brendt Citta (283/372/439) reached on an error by the pitcher, sending the fake runner to third. A wild pitch scored the tying run and put Citta in scoring position as the potential winning run, but he was thrown out at the plate on CF Matt Fraizer’s (239/304/289) line single to right. Another wild pitch sent Fraizer to third, from where he raced home and scored the winning run on Wood’s grounder to short.