Shelby Miller ALERT!
Past future redbird Lance Lynn mowed down the Brewers in his first start for 2012 putting up 8 Ks with no walks and only a pair of hits. The next prospect in line for a rotation slot, Shelby Miller, struggled somewhat in his AAA debut. Just two games in the Cards system today but still plenty of top prospecty goodness. Oh, and I’m Juan Iglesias AKA purple_haze, from that other Cardinals blog with the weird Spanish name. It’s good to see you all in church this evening.
- Shelby Miller threw only 67 pitches in 3 innings of work after getting knocked around for 7 hits and 4 earned runs including a homer by wayward ex-Redbird Brett Wallace. He also took a liner off the forearm in the first inning. Miller was still able to strike out 4 and walk no one, so it wasn’t a complete disaster.
- Adam Reifer and Maikel Cleto each threw a perfect frame with a strikeout.
- Eduardo Sanchez continues to concern with his wildness, managing to walk a pair and give up three doubles plus a single in his two thirds of an inning.
- Matt Adams did not hit a home run. He did, however, go 1-3 with a walk. I’m not sure if I’m more encouraged by his home runs or his walks at this point.
- Zach Cox was 2-4.
- Cedric Hunter, the organization’s newest acquisition, was 2-4 with the Redbirds’ only extra base hit of the afternoon.
- Michael Blazek gave up 5 earned runs on 8 hits in his 4 innings. He walked 3 and struck out only 1.
- Eric Fornataro struck out a pair in a perfect inning.
- Oscar Taveras, the youngest player in the Texas League, was 3-5 with his first home run and a double playing DH today. He also struck out twice.
- Kolten Wong demonstrated his on base prowess going 2-3 with two walks and a stolen base. Sounds like a future lead off hitter to me.
- Jose Garcia was 2-5 with a double.
- Rainel Rosario was 2-3 with a walk.
- Xavier Scruggs hit his first home run of the year. Scruggs has hit a bit of a wall in the organization, bouncing between A+ and AA for the past couple years. He’s got plenty of power but he’ll need to cut down on the strike outs this year to make it to the next level.
- Nick Derba was 2-4 with a double.
Entries (RSS)
No Home Run? …this Adams kid sucks.
But he did draw a walk!!!
Shelby and Sanchez…ugh
I have only watched the first 2 AB’s so far but on the second one Miller was hit by a hard ball up the middle off his forearm. Maybe it rattled him. Will have to see his performance later to night.
Kolten Wong off to a great start. I’ve got a feeling he’s gonna put up some big numbers in the Texas League this year.
Ok I’m watching Millers start and it’s not as bad as it looks. He did give some solid basehits and I can’t tell vertical location because the camera angle isn’t behind the pitcher. His first inning he gives up a hard single off his forearm but gets a double play 2 pitches later to end the inning. The second inning he gives up a hard double. Brett Wallace(minus 30 pounds) singles sharply up the middle. The next batter singles up the middle. Miller this dillydallies around with the pitcher by trying to paint the corners and then gives up a single to him. In all honesty, Adams tried to do his best Pujols impression and ranged too far when the ball would have been easily fielded by the 2nd baseman. Despite that fact it shouldn’t have got to that point. Way too many pitches to a pitcher. The next hitter just gives up a soft fister to left field. Good pitch by Miller can’t fault him with that.
3rd inning-Miller struck out the first 2 batters fairly easily. Wallace then took and outside pitch with the help of Millers velocity and crushed it out to left.
Overall impressions is he looked pretty good. Had good control horizontally. Couldn’t tell vertically. 7 of 8 pitches in the first were strikes. The second inning he gave up some hard hit balls but it looked like was working on his locations and not just throwing hard. 3 hard hit balls that inning and a little bad luck. Wallace pounded the ball the last inning on a ball right on the corner. It was a good piece of hitting.
Overall not as ugly as the boxscore seemed. He threw 62 pitches with 47 strikes. He was right around the zone all day.
Adams and Wong starting out the season like top prospects should. Shelby and Sanchez, not so much. Starting to get a little bit worried about Mr. Miller. Early reports of lower velocity. Any reports on where it was tonight? We could shrug off reports of a lack luster spring training by saying he was just working on his pitches, but now the season has started and he can start dominating again any time now.
Sanchez seems to be legitimately lost and a concern. Miller is just learning how to pitch. I seriouslly doubt he is any different of a pitcher than he was last year. He may be a little behind because he didn’t take some lumps when he should have at lower levels. I don’t expect him to post dominating stats this year…..that doesn’t mean he won’t develop into an Ace MLB pitcher.
They didn’t give gun readings on the game today but after seeing the performance I’m not too worried. It seems like he was good with his locations. Gave up 2 dinkers and several hard it balls. They weren’t jumping all over everything he threw they were swinging through pitches but eventually hitting one hard. 2 of the 5 hard hit balls he gave up were to our very own Brett Wallace who has lost 30 pounds and is swinging the stick well.
Not worried about Miller one bit. He’s 21, the whole season, in AAA. He will have his dominating games but he will also struggle in some too. 4k:0bb is promising. Out of the seven hits, only two were extra base hits and both of those came against guys who have spent time in the majors just this past season.
Eduardo Sanchez, please don’t be falling apart on us.
Just watched a few more important innings.
Reifer looked good not sure if all his velocity is back yet.
Cleto obviously much better than his previous outing.
Sanchez is totally lost now. He can’t throw his slider for a strike so teams are sitting on hits fastball. The ones he guides in get crushed the ones that don’t miss the strikezone. He pitched to 9 batters in the 8th tonight and didn’t make it out of the inning. 1st batter easy ground ball out. 2nd batter went full then hit a line drive double off the wall in left field. Retired 3rd batter easily. 2 outs. 4th hitter Brett Wallace took first pitch opposite field gapper for a double. Wasn’t bad pitch. 5th batter he gave up a soft liner over the SS head. Not bad but it was late in the count. 6th batter went deep in the count and on a 3-2 pitch crushed a ball off the wall 1 foot from going out. 8th batter went full and then hit the man on the back leg with a slider. Then walked 9th man.
Im sure some of this has to do with the delievery issues Matheny cited. I think Sanchez has to first work on throwing his slider for strikes. Not swinging strikes but sliders that drop into the zone for called strikes. That way the batters can’t just sit fastball. When he can throw his sliders over the plate for strikes, he can work on throwing the slider that looks like the fastball that starts but then breaks otu of the zone. I wouldn’t be suprised if the nextpitcher called up if someone in the pen goes down is Reifer or Cleto.
As always, pitching becomes a problem area. We need bull pen help at the ML level. The “pen” is looking good but its early. Sure hope Miller has a good yr..
A couple of things of notice after the opening series at Springfield. Tavares expands his strike zone frequently. This was something I saw him do in 2009 consistently and it doesn’t seem any better now. Reminds me a little of Howie Kendrick’s approach.
Wong looked much more natural in the field than I have heard from other sources. I think he’ll surprise some people with his glove.
Finally, Greg Garcia is a pretty athletic player. prospect watchers should take note and watch carefully.
Good comments. Taveras does indeed like to hit and isn’t very particular whether they are strikes.
Agree with comments on Greg Garcia. Hope he starts hitting soon.
Wong. Can anybody have a better start than he has so far?
Everything I’ve seen of Taveras is that he has developed a pretty good eye. Not the free swinger he is reputed to be. I think he’s just adjusting to better breaking balls at the moment.
Very possible since he’s making a two level jump.
Although one start does not necessarily mean anything, my question is whether we should expect Miller to dominate at AAA this year or is it normal to take some time to learn how to pitch at this level?
I went through the minor league stats of major league aces to see if I could get some idea, throwing out top pitchers who came from college programs since they all seemed to dominate in the minor leagues. The best examples I could find of pitchers who did not dominate at AAA were Halladay. Lester and Wainwright. However most of the other pitchers I looked at Kershaw (skipped AAA), Hernandez, Greinke, Hamels, Cain, Gallardo, Sabbathia, Hellickson, Pineda, Hanson and Matt Moore did have dominating numbers at AAA or in Kershaw’s case double AA before they came up.
Not looking for an argument about whether any of the above are really aces yet.
Just curious about what we should expect from Miller this year at AAA if he really is as good as we hope he is.
I would be happy with any ERA below 4.00. I think you will see him come on strong in the second half – I would almost ignore the first half and start keeping closer track after the all-star break.
I like that answer. Miller needs to adjust to the talent level. He could have helped himself by having been more faithful in developing his secondary pitches last year but it was a minor issue. His stuff will keep him from getting into too much trouble and I think the light bulb will click on for real sooner rather than later.