Starling Marte Looks Ready to Return to the Pirates

Starling Marte is nearing his return for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Thus far, his rehab stint at Triple-A has gone extremely well.

On Tuesday, Starling Marte will return to the Pirates after serving his 80 game suspension for PED use. In the meantime, he has been making rehab starts for Triple-A Indianapolis. In these rehab starts, he has looked ready to go and to rejoin the Pirates.

As the Pittsburgh Pirates attempt to make a run at the first place Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central they will need all hands on deck. Getting Starling Marte back should be a big boost and make an impact for the Pirates. Especially if offensively he can keep doing what he’s currently doing at Triple-A.

Starling Marte has played in 7 games for Triple-A on his rehab stint. He has been playing left field and batting leadoff. Thus far, the results have been strong from Marte.

He owns a .387 on-base percentage, .366 wOBA, and a 128 wRC+ in 31 plate appearances. He has hit a home run and has stolen 3 bases as well. He also has a 21.1 percent line drive rate which is just under his Major League lifetime line drive rate of 22.2 percent.

While it is just Triple-A pitching, this is still encouraging from Marte. He had not faced professional pitching since April 17th, so it would not have been crazy to expect there to be some rust. However, he appears to be pretty rust free so far.

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Clint Hurdle and the Pirates have already said that when Starling Marte returns he will go back to being the team’s everyday left fielder. This will put Adam Frazier back into the utility man off the bench role that he much better suited for, while also making the bench stronger. So, Marte returning is a move that will help the Pirates in multiple ways.