Tuesday, July 15

PHOENIX -- We’ve heard plenty about the Pirates’ deep pool of pitching in their farm system all season. This week in the desert, we got to see it.

On Monday, No. 7 prospect Braxton Ashcraft made his Major League debut, tossing three scoreless innings out of the bullpen. On Tuesday, No. 15 prospect Mike Burrows made the start, and while a messy fourth inning cut his night short, he was mostly dinked and dunked by one of the top performing offenses in baseball. He showed some stuff and didn’t surrender much hard contact. Sometimes, that’s baseball.

Neither prospect is currently on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 list like Bubba Chandler (No. 2), Thomas Harrington (No. 84) and Hunter Barco (No. 93), but they are well touted and have full pitch arsenals that could play in the Majors. Each pitcher has one offering that stands out in particular: an offspeed and a breaking pitch.

Burrows’ pitch: Changeup

The stats: 0.48 BAA, 66% whiff rate in Triple-A, 27.5 inches of vertical drop, 1,569 RPM of spin in Majors

The skinny: Burrows’ two starts in the Majors have been mixed bags. The results haven’t been there yet, allowing four earned each turn, but also flashing some plus pitches, including the changeup. In his first start, he got eight whiffs with it. On Tuesday, he threw more changeups than he did fastballs.

“I think it’s also a little bit of a testament to the fastball as well,” Burrows said on his changeup after his first start. “I don’t think I would get as many whiffs if the fastball wasn’t good. It’s something to build off of, and making sure I’m utilizing that as much as I did today and locate the fastball better.”

For most pitchers, the changeup is an offering that is used exclusively when they don’t have the hand advantage against the batter. Burrows will throw it to right-handers, too, challenging them on the inner-part of the plate. When he locates like he has in his brief time in the Majors, it’s going to yield plenty of weak contact off the hands.

Burrows is going to need to sharpen that fastball -- his troubles in the fourth Tuesday stemmed from his heater and the curve -- but he has an out pitch in the changeup.

Ashcraft’s pitch: Slider

The stats: .194 BAA, 41.9% whiff rate in Triple-A, 28 inches of vertical drop, 2,620 RPM of spin in Majors

The skinny: If you want to nitpick, Ashcraft wanted a wild first pitch in his debut back, but quickly regrouped and put together a quality outing.

“I settled in, pitched my game,” Ashcraft said. “I lean on my slider a lot, especially coming in in relief.”

Ashcraft wasn’t underselling his slider usage. He threw it 48% of the time in his debut (he averaged 28.4% usage in Triple-A), and it worked. The Diamondbacks put six sliders in play, all for outs, and he struck out Tim Tawa for his first big league punchout with that slider.

Oh yeah, that slider to Tawa also came in at 90.9 mph. That’s a cutter for most people, but most cutters don’t get the type of depth Ashcraft does. He can skirt that line between making it a slider or cutter given the situation or which part of the zone he’s attacking. If it’s up, it’s more of a cutter. If it’s low, it’s a gyro slider.

It doesn’t get a ton of sweeping action, but that bite tunnels well with his four-seamer, which usually goes in the upper-part of the zone. Like Burrows -- and plenty of other pitchers -- the best secondary pitch usually plays off the fastball, but he showed he can use it as a primary pitch for an outing. That’s something worth keeping in mind as he adjusts to bullpen life for the first time.

Ashcraft was the fourth Pirate to make his Major League debut this season. Who was the first?

A. Mike Burrows

B. Tsung-Che Cheng

C. Thomas Harrington

D. Matt Gorski

Checking in with some of the top performers in the Pirates’ farm system:

• Chandler took a no-hitter into the seventh inning in his last start on Saturday. He has struck out 34 batters in 23 1/3 innings this month, the most punchouts at the Triple-A level.

• Infielder Kiener Delgado (No. 26) hit three home runs on May 21. He entered the week on a five-game hitting streak, as well as five-game streaks of scoring and driving in a run. His eight home runs in May are tied with teammate Esmerlyn Valdez for the most home runs in the South Atlantic League this month.

• Catcher-first baseman Derek Berg (not ranked) entered the week on a nine-game on-base streak, hitting .320 (8-for-25) with a double and two triples during that stretch. The team’s 10th-round Draft pick last year is throwing out 43% of attempted basestealers (12 caught stealing in 28 attempts).

What is it: Renegade Dog

What’s in it: A foot-long hot dog with pot roast, mini pierogies, caramelized onions and pickles

Review: This is the Pirates’ entry into the hot dog wars we’ve seen across the league the last few years, and it’s a worthy entrant. It’s probably best to cut or rip it into segments rather than tackle it all at once and try to juggle all of the toppings, but there are enough goodies that you should be able to get the full experience each bite.

Where to get it: Pop’s Plaza by section 133

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C. Harrington

Harrington was the first player to get the call from the Minors this year, making his debut on April 1 at Tampa Bay.

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