Indians' Glasnow takes walk on wild side

Friday night was the best of times and the most erratic of times for Tyler Glasnow.

The Pirates top prospect worked six hitless innings, striking out six, but issued six walks in Triple-A Indianapolis' 4-0 loss at Charlotte.

"I feel a lot better in the stretch than the windup. I have the last couple years," Glasnow told MLB.com after walking four over five no-hit frames against Rochester on June 1. "It was hard for me to figure out the rhythm of the windup and I was trying not to think about it, but once I went to the stretch, everything felt good. My walks came from the windup."

The 22-year-old right-hander lowered his ERA to 1.75, which ranks second in the International League behind Buffalo's Wade LeBlanc (1.51). However, despite fanning 15 over 10 2/3 innings in his last two starts, he's walked 11 in those outings. The six walks are a season high for Glasnow, one short of a career high he hit twice -- on May 28, 2013 for Class A West Virginia and on April 30, 2014 for Class A Advanced Bradenton.

After MLB.com's No. 8 overall prospect set his previous season high of five walks in an otherwise dominant outing on May 1 -- which he's since matched twice -- Indians manager Dean Treanor expressed a belief that these kinds of starts can provide Glasnow with the best learning opportunities.

"I think the biggest thing about this is the experience of going through this," the skipper said. "He's going to have days like this, but for him to be able to keep them off the board was the biggest thing for me.

"... You're not always going to have your best stuff, so knowing how to pitch without your best stuff, without your best fastball, go to your other pitches and get the outs when you need to, it's growing up. It's growing up as a pitcher."

On Friday, Glasnow worked a 1-2-3 first but walked one in the second and two in the third. He seemed to find his rhythm when he got the last two outs of the fourth and the first two in the fifth, but Leury Garcia walked on four pitches and stole second base. Jason Bourgeois drilled a 2-0 offering down the third-base line, but Max Moroff speared it and fired to first to take away a hit and possibly save Glasnow a run.

By the time Glasnow overcame a one-out walk to get out of the sixth, he'd thrown 97 pitches, 51 for strikes.

Kelvin Marte (2-2) relieved Glasnow and took the loss after allowing three runs on two hits and a walk in the seventh.

Anthony Ranaudo (3-2) tossed eight innings for the Knights, scattering five hits and two walks while fanning two.