Pittsburgh Pirates Minors: Gage Hinsz Returns to Action

Months ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates announced that one of their pitching prospects Gage Hinsz would be missing time due to heart surgery.  He now has returned to play.

A lot of injuries happen in the game of baseball.  Anything from pulled hamstrings, broken hands, or something as serious as Tommy John Surgery.  However, for the Pittsburgh Pirates, they have seen a lot of off the field, life-altering injuries.  It started back in 2017 when right-handed pitcher Jameson Taillon was diagnosed with Testicular Cancer.  He went on to recover from it and is now looking like the Pittsburgh Pirates number one pitcher.

Hopefully, Gage Hinsz will see a similar bounce back from his unfortunate health issue.  In May of this past season, it was announced that Hinsz would have to undergo heart surgery.  At the time it was reported that Hinzs needed a heart valve replaced and it was expected that he would not make it back to the mound until next season.

Well, it looks like Hinzs, like Taillon before him, is battling back sooner than expected.  Hinsz will be playing in Puerto Rico’s Winter League for Gigantes de Carolina.  He will be joined by a few other Pittsburgh Pirates prospects as well.  This is exciting news and great to see that Hinsz is going to be getting back to the mound and hopefully getting his potential career back on track.

Hinsz was an eleventh round pick back in 2014.  He was part of the over-slot bonus prep arms that the Pittsburgh Pirates drafted that year.  The team took Mitch Keller and Trey Supak earlier that draft and all three of the pitchers got over-slot deals.  Hinsz was much later than the other two due to that he was coming out of Montana, an area that does not have a long baseball season.  Hinsz has thrown over 200 innings in the Pittsburgh Pirates system with an earned run average over 4.00.  Hopefully, Hinsz sees health and success this winter and comes back even stronger next season.