Report: Pirates to promote Luis Ortiz from Indianapolis

The youth movement continues for the Pittsburgh Pirates as it was reported Sunday night that RHP Luis Ortiz could be promoted from Triple-A Indianapolis on Monday.

Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported the move, however there’s been no official announcement from the team yet.

The 23-year-old pitcher has had an excellent season, to say the least, both with Double-A Altoona and Indianapolis. In 23 starts for the Curve, that spanned just over 114 innings, Ortiz posted a 5-9 record with a 4.64 ERA but struck out 126 hitters compared to 34 walks.

The brunt of Ortiz’s success came in August with Altoona as he allowed just nine earned runs over 28 innings pitched. In three of those appearances, he went six or more innings. But let’s not forget that he tossed not one, but two immaculate innings over the course of the season.

All of his work even earned him the No. 30 spot in the organization’s Top 30 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline.

Looking to capitalize on his success, the Pirates promoted Ortiz to Indianapolis at the beginning of September and, since then, he’s exceeded expectations.

After a shaky debut on September 2, which saw Ortiz give up four earned runs in four innings, he picked things back up in his next outing on the ninth, which saw him hold opposing hitters hitless through six.

This is probably a “Contreras Treatment” scenario, where he’ll come up, toss a few innings, and get sent right back down, which is fine considering his quick rise to fame over the course of the season.

Maybe, and hopefully, this also spells the end of the Bryse Wilson or Tyler Beede experiment.