Chase De Jong successful in start, Cole Tucker returns to lineup in Pirates’ spring win

Right-hander Chase De Jong continued to make his case as a darkhorse candidate for the Pittsburgh Pirates, pitching three shutout innings of a 2-1 win against the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday in Bradenton, Fla.

A 27-year-old former second-round pick of the Blue Jays signed as a minor league free agent in January, De Jong has not been scored on in five Grapefruit League innings. The 6-foot-4 righty on Friday retired nine of the 10 batters he faced — aided by a double play. He had one strikeout, one walk and allowed one hit, a Santiago Espinal double.

“Chase was good today,” manager Derek Shelton said via postgame video conference with media. “…I mean, one hard hit ball on a changeup. Execution of the fastball, staying in the zone, going right after guys, efficient innings. The only ball I think hit hard off him was the double-play. It was good to see. He has the ability to spin the fastball up in the zone. It’s something that we knew and we liked about him, and we saw it today.”

Five other Pirates pitchers — a Chris Stratton, Sean Poppen, Edgar Santana, Nick Mears and James Marvel — combined to allow three hits and two walks over five innings (the game ended in the middle of the eighth inning) with the only blemish coming against Nick Mears in the seventh as former Pirates prospect Reese McGuire doubled and scored on a Jordan Groshans sacrifice fly.

Santana was impressive, striking out two while throwing 11 of his 15 pitches for strikes in the sixth.

Cole Tucker took two impressive at-bats in appearing in a Grapefruit League game for the first time in 11 days because of a left thumb contusion. Tucker legged out a double and flew out to the warning track.

“Couple good swings,” Shelton said of Tucker. “Good, aggressive baserunning play. He stumbled going around first and made a nice slide in there. The line drive he hit towards him he was able to execute the exchange really quick…So overall, good first day back for Cole.”

The Pirates improved to 7-4-1 this spring with a victory that did not include an RBI. Each of their runs came via a Toronto error — the second of which was an exciting, albeit peculiar, type.

? LITTLE LEAGUE HOME RUN ? pic.twitter.com/VQLXv0XxX6

— Pirates (@Pirates) March 12, 2021

Rodolfo Castro lofted a two-out flyball to left in the fifth, and a jogging Lourdes Gurriel nonchalantly gloved the ball but lost it. He tried to play it off that he held it long enough to record an out, but an alert Castro kept running. By the time Gurriel relented to throw the ball in, the speedy Castro beat the relay throw and scored the “Little League home run.”

The Pirates’ first run wasn’t as thrilling. Dustin Fowler walked to lead off the bottom of the first, stole second, went to third on a throwing error on the attempt to catch him and scored on an errant pickoff attempt.

The Pirates won despite only three hits, two of them singles.

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