Taillon, Andriese give hitters a hard time

After an April that went about as well as anybody could reasonably imagine for Jameson Taillon, he opened May with another long outing in which he posted another string of zeros.

The Pirates' No. 4 prospect scattered two hits and a walk over seven innings in Triple-A Indianapolis' 1-0 win over visiting Durham in 12 innings on Tuesday. Rays right-hander Matt Andriese struck out 14 while turning in seven shutout innings as well. He scattered three hits and a walk over that span.

"We had a good pitchers' duel going," Andriese said. "Obviously, everybody knows who he is. He was out there throwing strikes as well, using his pitches well to get ahead in the count. It was the same [as what I was doing] -- he was commanding his pitches and attacking the strike zone. It's tough to beat a quality pitcher like him."

Taillon, a 24-year-old righty and MLB.com's No. 50 prospect overall, missed 2014 after Tommy John surgery and was sidelined by an inguinal hernia in 2015. In his first competitive month in two years, he went 2-0 with a 1.54 ERA over four starts, during one of which he threw six innings of one-hit ball. His latest gem dipped his ERA to 1.19.

After a one-out single by No. 7 Rays prospect Daniel Robertson in the first inning, Taillon retired 16 in a row. When Jaff Decker broke that string with a two-out walk in the sixth, it was just the third free pass Taillon had allowed all year. He shrugged it off as well as the one-out single collected by 11th-ranked Rays prospect Richie Shaffer in the seventh. He threw 58 of 89 pitches for strikes.

In the meantime, Andriese's 14 punchouts tied a record for the most by a visiting pitcher at Victory Field. The last to accomplish that feat was Oklahoma City's Rick Helling on July 11, 1996.

"That's pretty cool. It's always good to hold records for strikeouts," the 26-year-old UC Riverside product said. "That's a nice little record, and 14 strikeouts looks pretty good in the box score."

While it was statistically Andriese's best outing of the year, lowering his ERA to 3.41, he didn't think he'd done anything differently on the hill. 

"Nothing changed. I went out and went about my business as usual. I attacked hitters with all four of my pitches and commanded my fastball," he said. "I just treated today as another start. I was getting ahead of hitters early, not letting them get into a [comfortable] position. I was always in attack mode, always aggressive."

Throwing 70 of 98 pitches for strikes, Andriese didn't allow a baserunner through the first 12 he faced, striking out the side in the second after whiffing the first two to start the game.

"I realized after the fourth nobody had got on base yet, but it didn't affect the way I threw the ball," he said. "I took it one pitch at a time."

That approach helped him work around a leadoff single by No. 3 Pirates prospect Josh Bell in the fifth and a base knock by Willy Garcia -- ranked 10 spots behind Bell -- two batters later. After Bell got another single through to start the seventh, Andriese set down three in a row to end his night.

Adam Frazier, the Pirates' No. 27 prospect, broke the scoreless tie with a two-out single with the bases loaded in the 12th, making a winner of Jorge Rondon (2-1), who allowed two hits and struck out three over three innings.