Pittsburgh Pirates Minors: Blake Cederlind Promoted, Debuts In Triple-A

After being promoted to Triple-A earlier in the day, a Pittsburgh Pirates relief pitching prospect was impressive in his debut for the Indianapolis Indians on Thursday night

On Thursday, the Pittsburgh Pirates announced a slew of roster moves pertaining to the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians. One of these moves was promoting hard throwing reliever Blake Cederlind from Double-A to Triple-A.

As Nick wrote about recently, a promotion of Cederlind is a move that should have already happened. Well, Cederlind’s promotion has finally come.

Prior to being promoted Cederlind owned a 1.77 ERA and a 3.08 FIP in 45 2/3 innings pitched in 31 relief outings for Double-A Altoona. He allowed just one home run, held opposing batters to a .190 batting average against, struck out 22.7% of batters faced, and walked 8.7%. With the Curve, Cederlind was dominating opposing batters and had nothing left to prove at the Double-A level.

After being promoted earlier in the day, Cederlind toed the Triple-A rubber for the first time later in the night. In his first inning of work Cederlind threw 17 pitches and 12 of them clocked in on the radar gun at 98 miles per hour or harder. This including hitting 100+ MPH multiple times.

Cederlind pitched a total of 1 2/3 innings for the Indians on Thursday night. He struck out three batters and did not issue a walk. After posting a zero in his first inning of work, he ran into some trouble in his second inning.

In the 8th inning Cederlind allowed a pair of singles and uncorked a wild pitch. This was followed up by allowing a 3-run home run to Jeimer Candelario. Cederlind then hit a batter, allowed a double, and picked up a strikeout. After his third strikeout of the evening, he was lifted from the game.

While Cederlind did get tagged for 3 runs on Thursday night he still flashed his potential. Cederlind showed off his power stuff and ability to be a future back end of the bullpen arm for the Pirates. He will be an intriguing arm to keep an eye on during the final few weeks of the Triple-A season.