Former Pirates first-round pick shows promise in spring debut

Quinn Priester made a strong case for one of the open slots in the Pittsburgh Pirates rotation on Wednesday when he made his Grapefruit League debut. 

The club's only solidified starters are the newly acquired Martin Perez, Marco Gonzales and the recently extended Mitch Keller. It is the perfect scenario for Priester to earn back a starting role after a rocky 2023.

Pittsburgh's first-round pick in the 2019 draft made his big-league debut on July 17 in a losing effort to Cleveland in which he gave up seven runs. After five more shaky starts and an ERA of over nine, Priester was optioned back to Triple-A after less than a month in Pittsburgh. 

He eventually returned in early September as a long reliever before closing out the year with two starts. There was slight improvement during his last month with the team, as he worked his ERA to 7.74 and gave up just two runs in his second-to-last start of the season. Still, he fell far short of the lofty expectations that were established for him.

It took Priester just one outing in the spring to get Pittsburgh talking again. 

While the competition for starting roles this spring is vast, he seemed to flash a newfound confidence to begin his comeback campaign. He tossed two scoreless innings against the Detroit Tigers and earned a strikeout. Priester managed to throw 13 of his 19 pitches for strikes, garnering four swings and misses. All of the whiffs came from his slider, which he threw six times. When batters did make contact, they did so without much conviction. None of the balls put into play were deemed as being hard contact.