Pittsburgh Pirates' fiery start inspires Altoona Curve's bright season outlook

BLAIR COUNTY, Pa. (WJAC) — Baseball is finally back, and the Altoona Curve start their season Friday.

Even though the Minor League season hasn't started yet, their Major League affiliate's success has them feeling confident.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are off to a 5-0 start and after speaking with some members of the Altoona Curve, we've learned that the Bucs’ fiery start has inspired the curve to do the same.

"You watch that as younger players coming up through the system, you better get on board or you get left out," said Curve manager Robby Hammock.

If baseball coming back wasn't enough to hype up the Altoona Curve locker room, seeing their big league affiliate go perfect in five games has spread some positive energy into the organization

Even better, current Pittsburgh Pirate Jared Jones played with the Curve last year and made his debut in the big show Saturday, striking out 10 batters in a win for Pittsburgh.

His success has shown his former teammates that they can reach that level too.

"All those guys being in that position and succeeding is very exciting,” explained Curve pitcher Braxton Ashcraft. “Lots of fire under your butt because you want that to be you. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it is important to recognize that they have had the same struggles and the same walk as all of us, and they've been there. And it's just reassuring that that's achievable."

Ashcraft told 6 News he only watched a couple innings of Jones' debut.

But teammate Bubba Chandler has watched nearly every inning of the Pirates season so far and became emotional watching his teammate do what he hopes to be doing some time soon.

"I’m not in Jared’s class,” said Chandler. “He was here before me, but I almost shed a tear when I saw him go out there. Because i know how hard he worked this offseason to get that moment."

While the Curve didn't make the playoffs last year multiple players hold the belief that they can win a double a championship this year.

"There's just a really good group of position players and pitchers, that I see here that I don't know if I had that in the past coming up in other systems with this many here together," said Hammock.

The Curve will head to Akron Friday for opening day before coming back to Altoona for their home opener next Tuesday.

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