Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Domingo Robles Solid Again

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a young left-handed pitcher who is rising up their prospect rankings.  He has thrown a few good games this year, including last night.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have lacked the development of quality left-handed pitchers.  Neal Huntington and company have never seemed to overly target the left-handed amateur market.  More often than not, through the draft the team comes away with big, power arm, right-handed pitchers.  With that, they rarely seem to have any big time left-handed pitching prospects.  The most notable one of recent would be Steven Brault or Taylor Hearn, both who they acquired in a trade.

However, the Pittsburgh Pirates may have finally found a left-handed talent that could be developing into a quality prospect.  Robles entered the Pittsburgh Pirates top 30 prospects last year on MLB Pipelines’ list. While his numbers never looked overly impressive, nor was he a noted prospect signing,  there obviously was something the scouts saw.  Robles is starting to show that for the West Virginia Power.

The 19-year-old lefty got off to a slow start this season giving up five earned runs in 3.2 innings.  However, since then he has only give up four runs in his last three starts.  He also threw a game two starts ago that he struck out nine batters in just six innings of work.  So, obviously, the young Dominican player has good stuff.  This includes a fastball that sits 92-93, and being he is just 19 years of age, he should see an uptick as he matures.

Next: Pirates Mailbag

Latest Start

Last night, the Pittsburgh Pirates prospect pitched against the Rome Braves, an affiliate of Atlanta.  He had his best start of the year.  He threw five innings and only gave up four base runners in the game.  He gave up two hits and two free passes, however he did not allow any runners to score in his five innings of work.  Meanwhile, he once again had the strikeout pitching going.  The lefty struck out seven hitters on the night.  The performance bounced his ERA below 4.00 on the season.  The 6’2” pitcher has continued to improve each start since his first one.  Hopefully, he is in form and will continue to develop into a future top left-handed pitching prospect.