Randy and Ron, pitching on the same team for the first time in their professional careers. Kudos to them for having made it as far as they have and I’d love to see them succeed at the major league level — but they’re fringe arms at best.
Allen Vaughan catches up with Fernando Salas and Jess Todd of the Futures Game.
Cody Hearther is back in Springfield. I still think he has the chance to hit his way into the majors as a Geoff Jenkins-lite but it almost certainly won’t be with the Cardinals.
Did anyone else realize Tino Martinez was the World Future’s Team coach?
Short DFR tonight as Batavia is postponed and JC’s game was suspended. Movie notes at the end of the post, if you are interested.
- Bryan Anderson drew a walk in his only plate appearance.
- Jess Todd threw a scoreless frame walking 1 and erased the base runner as part of a strike-’em-out-throw-em-out with Taylor Teagarden.
- Ferndando Salas threw a scoreless frame striking out Matt LaPorta.
Memphis 6, Omaha 5 (12 innings)
- Brian Barden was 2-for-6 with a double.
- Josh Phelps was 3-for-6 with a HR.
- David Freese was 1-for-4 with a HR and a walk.
- Shane Robinson was 3-for-5.
- Mitchell Boggs had an excellent outing. He went 7 innings allowing 4 hits and 2 runs while walking 2 and striking out 5. The kudos come for the 13 groundball outs against 3 flyball outs. Boggs has reached a point where he’s probably good enough to get AAA guys out on a regular basis. He needs to sharpen his curveball and develop some kind of offspeed pitch if possible. The secondary offerings have to improve if he’s going to succeed at the next level.
- Matt Clement recorded 3 outs on 6 pitches (5 strikes).
- Jason Motte struggled again. He threw 2 innings allowing 2 hits, including a HR. He struck out 3.
- Mark Worrell picked up the win despite one of his worst outings of the year. He allowed 2 runs in th 12th on 4 hits. He was rescued by Phelps walk off 3 run jack giving Memphis the victory.
- Allen Craig was 2-for-5 with a double.
- Andrew Brown was 2-for-4 with a double.
- After a superb outing last time in which he went 6 scoreless innings and struck out 8, Adam Ottavino struggled tonight. He allowed 5 hits and, perhaps more worrisome, walked 4 batters. Over the 6 innings he allowed 6 ER. Not a good night. . .
- Josh Dew pitched 2 scoreless innings allowing 1 hit, 1 BB and striking out 1.
Palm Beach 5, Lakeland 6 (10 innings)
- Rough night at the plate for Tyler Henley who went 0-for-5 in the leadoff spot.
- Charles Kingrey went 3-for-5 with a double and a HR. Kingrey is quitely having a good all around game in pitcher’s parks. He’s posting a .290/.352/.455 line between QC and PB showing the ability to hit for average, take a walk and hit for some power. While he’s not necessarily in the upper echelon of Cardinal outfield prospects, he’s still a name you should know.
- Daryl Jones was 1-for-4 with a triple.
- Brian Cartie was 1-for-2 with a pair of walks.
- If you want a positive to take away from this game, the Cardinals tagged Rick Porcello for 5 runs in 4 innings.
- Mark Diapoules went 7 innings allowing 6 hits, 2 runs (1 earned), 2 walks and struck out 6. He also had 10 of 14 outs on the ground.
- Francisco Samuel‘s command bit him again. While recording 4 outs, he walked 4 batters, allowed a hit and 2 ER to garner his 5th blown save. I know there’s been some buzz about him as a prospect this season but I’m no where near that bandwagon yet.
- Once upon a time, I wanted the Cardinals to skip Kenny Maiques to Springfield. Then 2008 happened. Maiques took the extra inning loss allowing a run in the 10th on 3 hits. He struck out 2.
- Pete Kozma was 2-for-5.
- Brett Wallace was 2-for-4 with a walk.
- Carlos Pupo was 1-for-5 with a HR.
- D’Marcus Ingram and Ismael Cardona each collected 2 hits. Ingram drew a base on balls as well.
- Ryan Kulik got hammered. The defense didn’t help but it’s an ugly box line — 3 IP, 8 R, 5 ER.
- Dylan Gonzalez (because we don’t have enough Gonzalez in the system yet) went 3 innings allowing 1 hit while striking out 3.
I made my weekly trip to the movie theater to see some eye candy in Hellboy II. I thought Hellboy was a thoroughly underrated action flick and was eager to see what director Guillermo del Toro would concoct this time. Unfortunately the whole movie was completely flat. The script was worse than it usually is in action movies and served only as a paltry cover to move from one weak fight scene to the next. Add in some lines and parts of the plot that flat out didn’t make sense and the movie was a bust. I’d suggest renting Pan’s Labyrinth, also directed by del Toro, rather than spending the money on Hellboy — better script, same visually provocative monsters and an actually compelling plot.
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You left out our futures game participants.
Thought I had that in there . . . not sure where it went. Fixing problem.
I recorded the Futures Game and just got finished watching it. I have to say, it made me just a little less excited about Jess Todd. He’s a pretty odd duck to say the least, as his delivery was very unusual and had a lot of effort into it and he seems to fling his body towards the plate, which I guess may not necessarily be bad. He threw quite a few sliders, and it’s as good of a pitch as reported. I think he’s a set up reliever, and with his SL he’d make a fine one. If he makes it as a starter, we’ll certainly hear from every announcer how “different” he is. His numbers suggest he should be able to start, but now I’m not so sure.
Salas looked just OK to me. Average fastball, showed a good CH to Dexter Fowler to get a swing and miss. I didn’t see his hook, that’s supposed to be his best pitch, so I wasn’t able to come away with a real clear picture as far as what he brings to the table.
I like Todd, to me he has a MLB future..just not sure if its the pen or the rotation. You gotta keep running him out there every 5th day though, until he proves he cant do it. That motion is fine with me, he clears his front side well, his arm doesnt drag and has a nice follow through, it probably helps disrupts a hitters timing as well
Todd is one of those guys who, you say…his whole is better then the sum of his parts, when just looking at one pitch sequence or inning you might not appreciate him fully. He does throws 3 avg pitches to go along with an above avg slider. All 4 pitches come out exactly the same, you almost have to look at the radar gun every pitch to really know what he threw. He makes good hitters, take ugly swings…so his stuff is either that good, his motion that tricky or a little of both. Whatever it is, its working.
As for Salas, touched 93mph when he needed to, reminded me of former Cards sneaky RH reliever….Al Reyes.
I hate to say it, b/c I really like Bryan Anderson and believe he can have a fringe All-Star type of MLB career…but the kid looks so unnatural behind the plate. Its not about effort, technique or teachings…he just doesnt look natural at it, in my eyes…especially after you see him follow a guy like Teagarden.
To me, he has more value to this franchise in what he can bring in trade..then what he can do on the field for the Cards…..but that is just me.
Great stuff…just think next year the likes of Kozma, Wallace, D.Jones, R.Castillo and F.Prejo could all be running around the green grass of Busch in the futures game 09.
Az
I went and saw Hellboy2 this weekend as well. I am starting to think that I should just wait for your movies reviews before I decided to go see something, because I had pretty much the same thoughts on the movie. If you are really into art direction you should go see it, otherwise it was very flat. del Toro is becoming a very frustrating director for me–Mimic, Blade II were awful, Cronos was OK, Devils Backbone was good, Hellboy was solid, Pans Labyrinth was one of the best movies n the last five years, and this one went right back to somewhere between Mimic and Cronos on the watchability scale.
erik-
Personally, I’m not too worried about Todd’s delivery. Remember, any time you see a guy jump off the mound like that, it just means he’s using his legs a ton, which reduces the amount of velocity his arm has to try and create. I like his mechanics. I do see the concerns about him possibly being more of a reliever down the line, but I think whether or not he can continue to develop his changeup into a useful weapon will have much more to do with his future role than his delivery will.
And for the record, I still want to know what in the world happened to that “wipe out slider” we all heard about in the scouting reports on Boggs before this season? Someone has to know something. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!
I know velocity isn’t everything, but I was hoping for a few more ticks from both Todd and Salas.
Re: Anderson behind the plate – I got self-concious about it because I thought I was focusing on him too much. I usually don’t pay attention that close to what a catcher is doing defensively on each pitch and at one point I couldn’t tell if he seemed awkward back there or if it was the way I was watching. I really wish that he had a chance to throw down to second, because I’d love to see his footwork and exchange.
I thought he showed good patience at the plate, though. The first two pitches two him that were low and inside for balls weren’t that bad and I would think that a young player would be anxious to get his swings in during an all star-type game.
i just want to know where the pre-draft reports of todd throwing 90-94 came from. every time i have seen him he is throwing 87-89.
The link to Andrew Brown’s name takes you to an Oakland A’s pitcher by the same name.
About Ottavino – That first inning is what killed him. He gave up a single then walked the next three guys before giving up a grandslam to none other than Juan Richardson. After that he calmed down and pitched about like we would hope him to. Other than that first inning his control wasn’t all that bad. His velocity was consistantly around 95 mph all five innings which was encouraging. However, it appears the Nuke Laloosh theory still applies.
BJM — next week’s review will almost certainly be The Dark Knight. Can’t wait for that, especially with the rising Oscar Buzz around Ledger’s performance.
RB — Boggs curveball can get a little slurvy at times but I think the slider thing was really a myth. I’ve yet to see him throw more than a handful. The Keith Law report from the AFL last year had him with a curveball. I’m not sure the origin of his alleged slider.
FGC — don’t the Cardinals like to have pitchers sacrifice some velocity for movement. If Todd’s cut fastball is as good as reported than he should be fine.
Mark Diapoules is getting ground balls like crazy *and* striking people out. He’s officially got my attention.
It looked, to me, that Todd was sticking with the slider and cutter at the Futures Game. It didn’t look like he threw any 4-seamers, so I wasn’t real concerned about the velocity.
Azru, I’m with you on the Dark Knight. I’ve been waiting for that movie for quite a while. I’ve seen nothing but great reviews for it so far.