Rudy Owens started this Sunday for the Indianapolis Indians. Owens bursted onto the prospect scene following his 2009 season when he won his first of two Minor League Pitcher of the Year Awards. He is now starting his 2nd season in AAA and is was ranked the organization’s #13 prospect heading into this season.

Owens was extremely impressive on Sunday as he pitched seven scoreless innings. He gave up just two hits and struck out five while not walking a batter.

I’ll start off showing all of his strikeouts followed by an inning by inning breakdown. All of Owens’ strikeouts can be found here:

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Gorkys Hernandez was at one point rated as the #62 prospect in all of baseball when he was in the Atlanta Braves organization. However, his stock has fallen quite a bit since being acquired by the Pirates in the Nate McLouth trade in 2009. Pirates Prospects ranks him now as the #24 prospect in the Pirates organization. He still possesses and excellent glove and arm and should make a living in the Majors as a 4th outfielder.

I’ve seen Hernandez play a few times now that this is the 2nd season in AAA for the 24-year old and it is easy to see that he deserves the rave reviews in the outfield. However, today, he had an impressive day at the plate as well. He did not collect a hit, but ended up going 0 for 1 with three walks and his OBP is now at .382 after 15 games. Here are all four of his plate appearances.

Jordy Mercer is coming off a season where he belted 19 home runs between AA-Altoona and AAA-Indianapolis in 2011. That kind of power makes it hard to write off Mercer, who plays shortstop, a position where power is not often found. Pirates Prospects rated him as the #17 prospect in the organization heading into this season.

In today’s game, Mercer went 0 for 3 with a walk. All of his at-bats can be found below.

Starling Marte is ranked by many as the Pirates’ top hitting prospect. He lit it up in Spring Training this season, but was sent to AAA-Indianapolis after winning the Eastern League batting title last season in AA-Altoona.

It was the first time I had seen Marte in person and it is easy to see the tools he possesses. He lined a ball into the right field corner in his 2nd at-bat of the game and easily reached third base with a triple. For the game, Marte was 1 for 4 with the triple being his only hit. Below you will find all four of his at-bats.

Duke Welker was the Pirates’ 2nd round pick in the 2007 draft out of Arkansas. As he entered the system, big expectations were put on his shoulders as someone who should become one of the club’s top prospects. However, arm injuries and setbacks have derailed those plans and Welker has been forced into a relief role.

In that role, though, he has flourished. Due to his age, you won’t find him on any top prospects lists. However, it is hard to totally ignore someone who is all of a sudden throwing the ball in the mid to high 90′s and now consistently getting batters out.

So far this year, Welker has a 2.34 ERA over 50 innings for Bradenton. In those 50 innings, he has struck out 38 and walked 25. What those peripherals mean is he still has yet to harness his pitches, so it will be interesting to see what he does next year when he makes the jump to AA.

Welker faced 3 batters the game I saw him pitch as he tossed a scoreless inning of relief. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a gun at Brighthouse Field, so I have no idea where his velocity was. But, here are the 3 batters he faced:

Elevys Gonzalez was signed as an International free agent in 2008. After a solid ’08 season in the Venezuelan Summer League, he came to the US to make his debut in the GCL in 2009 where he held his own as a 19 year old. In 2010, he joined the WV Power and started catching people’s attention with his 6 homers in 236 AB as a 20 year old.

This year, he has continued to develop and has gotten better. He is sporting a solid .300/.354/.431 line as he has become a doubles machine with 29 so far on the season. He is still very young at 21 and is very much a prospect at this point. He’ll get a shot at AA next season to show if he can continue his development.

Gonzalez was 1 for 4 with a double in the game I saw him. You can see his double in his 4th AB. Here are all 4 of his AB’s:

Evan Chambers was the Pirates’ 3rd round pick in the 2009 Draft. Chambers has struggled a bit as far as his batting average goes in the lower levels of the Minors as he has yet to hit above .250 in a season. However, his ability to draw walks has at least kept people interested in him as his OBP has always been strong and he has yet to post an OPS under .750.

This season, for Bradenton, Chambers is hitting .243/.366/.405. This has been his strongest season to date when it comes to power potential as he has clubbed 11 homers thus far and 20 doubles. One glaring weakness in Chambers’ game are his strikeout numbers, though, as he has struck out in at least 25% of his at bats each of his first 3 seasons.

In the game I saw him, he seemed to be exactly what the scouting reports say. He was very patient at the plate as he drew a walk and worked the counts pretty deep. He also singled and struck out. If Chambers can cut down on the strikeouts a bit, thus giving him more chances to get hits, he could really turn into an interesting prospect. However, the low batting average at this point is really holding him back from being a top level guy in the organization.

His single came in his 2nd AB (which is broken up into two videos due to a issue with the pitching mound) and he walked in his 3rd plate appearance. Here are all 4 of his PA’s:

If you don’t read Tim’s Daily Prospect Profiles over at Pirates Prospects, you’re missing out. Today, his feature (link) was on Bradenton RHP Brandon Cumpton who was the Pirates’ 9th round pick out of Georgia Tech in the 2010 Draft. Check out the link for an in depth feature on Cumpton.

I wasn’t going to post this until next week, but since Tim featured Cumpton today and Cumpton also had a very solid start last night, I decided I’ll push this up a bit.

I saw Cumpton pitch on July 28th at Clearwater. It was the first time I had seen him in person and he looked very impressive to me. He retired the first 12 batters he faced and he struck out 8 batters in 6 innings. He had excellent placement of his fastball and had a breaking ball that nobody was touching. I broke down Cumpton’s outing over his 6 innings for you all to enjoy.

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