Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, Starling Marte Lead The Pittsburgh Pirates Charge Into Spring

Gerrit Cole pitched two innings in the Pittsburgh Pirates scrimmage today. Picture property of RumBunter

The Pittsburgh Pirates replaced the annual ‘can’t win no matter the result’ against the hated Manatees with a Black and Gold scrimmage and still nobody won.  The Bucs battled each other to a two all tie after an odd five and a half innings of play at the gorgeous McKechnie Field.

A couple of quick notes from the scrimmage.

McKechnie Field is really well done.  Kudos to Frank Coonelly for spearheading the efforts to modernize McKechnie, yet still keep the charm.  The Pirates President was on on hand checking out the action under the gorgeous Florida sunshine and talked with fans throughout the park.

Jameson Taillon and Gerrit Cole each pitched two innings of scoreless ball and looked alright for the first go round.

We saw that both Taillon and Cole reached the upper 90’s during the game.    Both pitchers didn’t seem to work hard, but each seemed deliberate, especially Taillon who cracked a few bats.

The big right handers stayed ahead of hitters and neither Cole or Taillon got to a three-ball count.  Cole threw nothing but first pitch strikes and worked down in the zone as well as being effective in getting the groundball to be his friend.

Starling Marte put on a show both with his bat and his glove.  The Buccos left fielder crushed a two-run bomb for the Gold Team off right hander  Kyle Waldrop.   The ball got up into the strong breeze and sailed over Frank’s new bleachers in left field.

Marte also made a dazzling catch, that if you follow us on twitter we described as ….what an insane catch.  There was no other way to describe it.  The Buccos were playing a scrimmage and Marte played like it was the final game of the 2013 World Series.  What a refreshing site to see, although we were holding our breath waiting for him to get up.  It took a while, but number six was back on his feet and stayed in the game.

Did we tell you how great the tiki bar is?  Although they weren’t able to get their register fixed to sell booze today, we did enjoy a few beers.  Pictures don’t do the new renovations justice, the Bucs did a nice job.

We saw Wilbur Miller and were able to talk baseball a bit.

We heard that  Josh Bell worked at IMG this offseason and was called a ‘beast’ by Andrew McCutchen.

Clint Robinson had a rough day with three strikeouts.

Alex Presley hit the ball well, just missing a double to lead off the game.

We will have more later, be sure to stop back.