CURVE, Pa. – Five players have been selected to represent the Altoona Curve at the 2017 Eastern League All-Star Game, the team announced in conjunction with the Eastern League of Professional Baseball on Wednesday.
(Photo: Montana DuRapau. Photo courtesy of Altoona Curve)
The game will take place at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester, N.H. on July 12.
Curve players Jordan Luplow, Wyatt Mathisen, Kevin Kramer, Alex McRae and Montana DuRapau will suit up for the Western Division’s All-Star team.
All five players picked up the first mid-season all-star selections of their careers. The rosters were selected through a combination of voting by Eastern League managers and media, as well as a fan vote.
Luplow, a left fielder from Visalia, Calif., is currently fifth in the league with 16 homers and third with 44 runs scored while batting .291, tied for second in the Pirates’ system. He is second on the Curve with 36 RBIs and is currently riding a ten-game hitting streak. A third-round draft pick by the Pirates in 2014 out of Fresno State, Luplow was picked as the Eastern League’s player of the week on June 4 and is currently ranked by MLB.com as the Pirates’ 30th-best prospect.
Mathisen, a second-round pick by the Pirates in 2012, is currently batting .290 on the season, which is ranked fourth in the Pirates’ minor league system. The 23-year-old third baseman has clubbed three homers and driven in 18 runs.
Kramer, a second-round pick in 2015 out of UCLA, was batting .297 with six homers and 27 RBIs when he was placed on the disabled list on June 11 with a broken hand. He posted a .373 average over 20 games in April. Kramer, a second baseman, leads all Pittsburgh minor leaguers in batting average. He is currently ranked as the Pirates’ 17th-best prospect.
McRae, a second-year member of the Curve, is 6-3 this season through 15 starts with a 3.58 ERA, tied for the most wins in the Pirates’ system. His 88.0 innings pitched are the third-most in the Eastern League. McRae, a tenth-round pick in 2010 out of Jacksonville University, went 3-0 with a 2.12 ERA in five starts during the month of April.
DuRapau, a 32nd-round draft pick out of Bethune-Cookman in 2014, leads the Eastern League and the Pirates’ system with 11 saves in 12 attempts. He also leads the league with 22 games finished. Over his 23 appearances this year, DuRapau is 2-2 with a 1.38 ERA. On May 19, DuRapau broke the Curve’s all-time saves record, which he has now stretched to 33.
The Curve are tied for the most all-star selections in the league with five. McRae and Luplow were selected through fan voting.
The 2017 Eastern League All-Star Classic kicks off on Tuesday, July 11 with the Home Run Derby and Celebrity Softball Game. The E.L. All-Star Game will take place on Wednesday, July 12 at 7:05 p.m., preceded by a pregame autograph session. Tickets are available at NHFisherCats.com. The game will be broadcast on the TuneIn Radio app and on MiLB.TV.
