Both starters pitch scoreless outings in split squad day

The starters of both games in split squad play were great. The offense came alive in the game with most of the projected starters in the lineup.

The Atlanta Braves had a split squad day with part of the team playing at their spring training home against the Rex Sox and the rest of the squad playing the Pirates away.

The home game featured most of the projected starters with Jarred Kelenic, Austin Riley, Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna, and Michael Harris II all in the lineup. Reynaldo López got the nod to start and faced former Braves pitcher Sean Newcomb.

López looked solid in his 2.0 innings pitched. He produced two ground outs, and two strikeouts while surrendering one walk and one double. Newly acquired Jake Diekman and Buck Farmer both made appearances. Diekman struck out two, surrendering zero walks and one single in his lone inning. Farmer faced the minimum number of batters while striking out one in his 1.0 innings pitched.

On the offensive side of things, it was quiet for the first few innings with Sean Newcomb getting through two innings with relative ease. Harris was the only one able to get a hit against him. The Braves finally broke through when Marcell Ozuna took Noah Davis deep after Olson reached on a single to make the score 2-0 in the fifth.

Conner Capel was a hero in the game when he came up to bat with the bases loaded with two outs and he was able to knock a single and score two runs to break the score wide open. Cal Conley then followed with a single of his own to virtually ice the game at 5-0.

Sandy León joined in on the fun with a solo shot of his own in the eighth.

In the away game, Orlando Arcia was the lone projected starter in the lineup, with potential platoon player Bryan De La Cruz also playing.

Spencer Schellenbach looked great in his 2.0 innings. The only base runner he had was when Ke’Bryan Hayes hit an infield single to Orlando Arcia. Schwellenbach was able to strike out arguably the two best offensive players on the Pirates in Oneil Cruz and Bryan Reynolds. Hurston Waldrep, who has a legitimate chance of making the team, or being called up at some point this season pitched a scoreless inning. He gave up a walk and had zero strikeouts. He was able to end the inning by getting Tommy Pham to ground into a double play.

The offense was able to finally get something going in the fourth inning when Garrett Cooper doubled with zero outs. It took Jake Marisnick hitting a single with two outs to finally score Cooper. In the fifth, Bryan De La Cruz had an RBI single scoring Eli White from second.

As expected, the offense was nothing to write home about. However, the pitching did a fine job with Schwellenbach, Waldrep, and company limiting the Pirates to just one run on five hits, and four walks with four strikeouts.

Key Takeaways

A key player that stuck out in this game was Eli White. He went 3-3 and is now 4-4 in spring training thus far. He has a fighting chance to make the roster and he is doing a fine job making his case.

The potential heart of the order were effective. Riley, Olson, Harris, and Ozuna all contributed today with their bats.

The pitching in both games was solid. There were only a combined ten hits, five walks, and two runs in both games combined.

Something of note to point out is that we had an overturned strikeout that resulted in a walk. Tommy Pham was initially called out on strikes from Jordan Weems but the Pirates challenged the call and it was overturned, resulting in a walk.