Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Arizona Fall League Play Begins

A pair of players from the Pittsburgh Pirates organization were in the lineup for the Salt River Rafter on the opening night of the Arizona Fall League season

Monday night, play kicked off in the Arizona Fall League. As we discussed last week, eight players from the Pittsburgh Pirates organization will be playing in the AFL this season. Those eight players are playing for the Salt River Rafters.

In Monday night's AFL action, the Salt River Rafters kicked off their season by playing the Glendale Desert Dogs. In a well pitched low scoring games, the Rafters got off to a 1-0 start on the season with a 3-1 victory.

Two of the eight Pirate prospects on Salt River's roster appeared in the game and were both in the starting lineup. Those two players were Jack Brannigan and Jase Bowen.

Brannigan had one of the strongest seasons of any position player in the Pirate farm system. Between Low-A Bradenton and High-A Greensboro, Brannigan hit for a .275/.390/.524 slash line with 19 home runs in 374 plate appearances.

Monday night was a tough start to his AFL season, though. Brannigan started at shortstop for the Rafters and went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. While it was not the start to the AFL season that Brannigan wanted, he will still be a very intriguing prospect to watch throughout the season.

As for Bowen, he started in right field and went 2-for-4 with a double. This builds on his strong season that saw him hit for a .255/.327/.466 slash line with 23 home runs in 526 PAs between High-A Greensboro and Double-A Altoona. Bowen has put himself on the map as one of the more intriguing power hitting prospects in the Pirate farm system.

Make sure to stay tuned here at Rum Bunter throughout the AFL season as we will have you covered on how each player from the Pirate organization that will be playing for the Rafters is performing.