Pittsburgh Pirates Rip 18 Hits Blast Baltimore Orioles 10-3

The Pirates rolled into Sarasota on a mission.

The Bucs brought plenty of players that were ready to hit. The team put together 18 knocks and scored in each of the first five innings as the Bucs grabbed their first Grapefruit League win of 2012.

We will run through the list of those hitters that had a solid night.

Matt Hague crushed a Kevin Gregg fastball for a homerun. Hague went three-for-four on the night with a 390 foot homer and two singles.

Alex Presley was perfect at the plate. Three hits including a triple, he drove in two teammates and scored twice.

Starling Marte struggled to catch fly balls in right field, but didn’t have any problem with a bat in his hand. He laid a perfect bunt down in his first at-bat, and had a couple other knocks while being a nuisance to the O’s on the basepaths.

Quincy Latimore absolutely crushed a ball to centerfield and hustled it into a triple. He also had a single in his other at bat after replacing Marte. The two players combined to go five-for-five with two runs scored.

Tony Sanchez worked a walk and also reached on a sharply hit single.

The pitching staff did a nice job last night too:

Justin Wilson looked strong. Damn is he fun to watch. He threw two innings and struck out three Orioles.

Other than a walk to J.J. Hardy, Jared Hughes looked strong. His breaking pitches were impressive.

Bryan Morris was consistently in the 94 mph range. He had a quick one, two, three inning on two groundouts and a flyout.

Michael Crotta worked very hard during our time at spring training. Ray Searage was working on some type of left leg mechanical adjustment. We will put some pictures up if Crotta keeps throwing one, two, threes on the scorecard.