Trevor Rosenthal’s terrific outing headlines an otherwise tepid night for the farm system. Things got ugly in Memphis for one relief pitcher and Quad Cities bats were silent.
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- Cedric Hunter and Bryan Anderson both went 2-for-4 on an otherwise dismal night for Memphis. Anderson doubled.
- Brandon Dickson, despite the final score, actually faired reasonably well. In 5 innings, he allowed 4 runs but only one was earned due to an error by Eugenio Velez. Dickson allowed 7 hits and 1 walk while striking out 4.
- The real goat was Clay Zavada who allowed 8 runs (7 earned) in 1 inning of work. He struck out 2 and walked 1. Albuquerque had 5 hits on him including 2 homeruns.
- Nick Greenwood stuck out 2 in 2 innings allowing 1 hit.
- Kolten Wong was 0-for-5.
- Oscar Taveras was 2-for-4 with a walk.
- Greg Garcia was 2-for-4 with a home run. Garcia continues to quietly shine this season as a shortstop. He’s hitting .272/.404/.414 after last nights game.
- Adam Melker was 2-for-3.
- Trevor Rosenthal had his strongest outing of the year with 7 innings of 1 run ball. He struck out 7 allowing 3 hits and a walk. It’s the second time this year that Rosenthal has made it through 7 innings. He hasn’t held the opposition to a single walk in the game since his first Springfield start when he walked 1 in 4 innings.
- Quad Cities mustered up 4 singles and 4 walks in the game.
- Jonathan Cornelius struggled through 4 innings allowing 7 hits and 4 earned runs. He struck out 3 and walked 1.
- Heath Wyatt struck out 2 to close out the game.
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Anyone watch the CWS games yesterday? I watched some of each. Here’s the BA roundup: http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/college/2012/06/friday-super-regional-roundup/
In the Arizona game, Kurt Heyer gave up 5 runs in one inning, but that is one tough kid. He pitched into the 10th, despite giving up 17 total hits, and Arizona won the game in the 11th. Alex Mejia showed some skills at SS.
In the Stanford-Florida State game, Piscotty drove in the first run of the game in the 1st inning, but it was all FSU after that. Ramsey had 3 hits, and nearly made a great diving catch in CF.
It was the first time I’d ever seen Austin Wilson play. I think his arm in RF could rival Clemente’s. It’s a weapon. At the plate, it seemed like he hit into a DP every time, although it may have only been one DP and at least one other ground ball to the left side.
The broadcasters said that Ramsey and Piscotty are good friends from the Cape Cod League, along with Appel and a couple other Stanford guys.
Speaking of Appel, if I were a Pirates fan, I’d be pretty worried right now. He threw like he had no idea where the ball would go. On the bright side, my wife was impressed. She thinks he’s a really good-looking guy (for someone young enough to be our son!).
Super Regionals not CWS.
You’re right, sorry.
Springfield finally has the right mix offensively, and at the right time to challenge for first half season champions. Pitching remains an issue just like last year. I wonder when they will take a look at coaching. There is too much talent on this team not to be serious contenders and some consistent pitching could seal the deal. Also waiting for the second show to drop with all of the transactions between STL and Memphis. Springfield pitching will probably loose even more consistency.
Rosie also only had 87 pitches. He probably could have pitched the 8th if they wanted him to. His ERA over his last 10 starts is 2.04. AND he had a hit! Raising his average over .180! He has had some back tightness from swinging the bat. I originally thought he might be one hell of a hitting pitcher (I still wouldn’t rule that out), but choice of bad back or bad hitting, I’ll take the bad hitting.
I’m getting cautiously excited about Greg Garcia.
Do you think Matt Carpenter’s success in his short stint with the Cardinals should keep us cautiously excited about Garcia? Like a Carpenter, he’s a solid-underrated fielder, but at a more premium position. Carp has more power, but Garcia is more age appropriate and maintaining a .400+ OBP after the big jump to AA.
I guess a big question with him is whether his lack of power will keep him from being able to defend the strike zone, leaving him vulnerable to the better control and stuff of ML pitchers.
Speaking of soft hitting, Garcia hit a HR yesterday against Tulsa.
I like your points here. I’m not sure Carpenter’s success has any relation to Greg Garcia’s success. All I can say is I have seen Garcia play twice. I don’t consider myself any expert eye. I see a kid who looks confident at both the plate and the field and is performing very well. I also don’t see a kid who appears to be maxed out. I expect him to continue to get better = your point on his age. I don’t need a power hitting shortstop. I need one who can cover ground and get on base. He is just another one of those guys who seems to work himself above everyone else. 7th round draft pick nobody thinks is more than filler. Now seriously, how incredible (and unlikely) would it be to have the University of Hawaii infield starting for the Cards? Whoa!
It’s already pretty incredible to have a strong Hawaiian AA middle infield that played together in college; ML would really be something.
I’m certainly not saying Carpenter’s success directly correlates to Garcia’s, but a big knock on his (Carpenter’s) offensive profile was that his lack of power would allow his discipline tool to be exposed against more advanced pitching. Surely that point holds true most of the time, but it’s nice to have a success story to point to so we can keep the prospect window open for Garcia, not that he cares.
I’ve seen him play a couple of times myself, and like you I’m no scout, but he did seem to have a good grasp on the game and did a lot of those small things right and well. He seems like he’ll continue to get the most out of the tools he has.
Rosie was efficient explained by his pitch count. I would say he could have went another inning at least but I think he has an innings limit for the season. Garcia will be make it to the big leagues on his OBP and his pesky glove at SS. Will be a good utility man.
So like I said, I went to the Springfield Cardinals game and here is my report back to you.
Oscar Taveras is everything you hear about and then some. He’s going to be a special player when he makes it to the big leagues IMO. He’s got a really weird batting stance and honestly it looks like he is chopping a tree when he swings, but does it work for him. The ball makes a completely different sound off of his bat than it did from most hitters, and it just jumps off of it too. Anyone who says he doesn’t have a batting eye doesn’t know what they’re talking about, he took a couple of borderline pitches but just swings when he sees a pitch he can hit. Defensively he looked the part in RF (I was hoping he’d be in CF though), but I think he could play center assuming he doesn’t get much bigger. He’s not going to be a Jim Edmonds kind of centerfielder, but I think he could be at least league average defensively. His arm is stronger than advertised. He caught a one hopper off a slicing hit down the line and threw it back into second quickly. I was impressed with that one. He’s not overly fast, I’d say he’s about a 50-60 in the speed department. I’m not sure he’ll ever top 20 stolen bases in a season. He’s not as skinny as I imagined him, but he’s not a hulk either. Think like Carlos Beltran built. And he plays with some swagger. He was drifting back for a fly ball that went to the warning track and he acted like it was going over before putting his hand up at the last minute to catch it. He’s going to be really good for several years to come.
Kolten Wong on the other hand didn’t have a real great night at the plate. And he’s listed at 5’9″, and I think that might be generous. He’s tiny. But back to him hitting, I think I counted three times he hit a weak ground ball to the first baseman and I only saw one ball hit out of the infield the entire game. Nice swing just wasn’t doing anything for him. Defensively he was smooth. Should be an above-average second baseman.
Trevor Rosenthal wasn’t really built like I thought he was. I thought he was stockier almost in the same mold as Jake Westbrook or Lance Lynn, but he’s got long legs. Not quite Adam Wainwright legs though. He’s got clean, repeatable mechanics and I think it adds some deception to his delivery. Unfortunately from where I was sitting, I had trouble telling his offspeed stuff from each other, but this slider/change up (I think it was the slider) had some nice late break that sort of just dropped down a plane. Unfortunately there were no guns in the park, but I’d have to guess he was sitting in the mid 90s with his fastball for the majority of the game. He had most of those Drillers hitters completely baffled as they were consistently late fouling pitches off behind home plate. There were only two really well driven balls, with one of them being the one that Taveras caught over the bullpen fences and then one driven to center where Adam Melker caught it on the warning track. Could have easily got an extra inning, but I think their manager was trying to break open up the game by pinch hitting for him. Honestly, I think he could pitch effectively out of the big league bullpen if needed.
Speaking of great hits, Garcia’s home run cleared the stadium. Not that it’s built in a huge way, but he hit it down the RF line and it cleared the stadium and the concourse there. If I had to estimate, I’d say 350+. The entire Drillers team didn’t move as they watched it go out of the stadium.
Nice call on Garcia’s homer! And THANKS for the game report. Rosie isn’t stocky, but he is a rock. In the offseason, he was squatting 450 lbs. They list him at 6’2″ 190 lbs. I think he is closer to 6’1″ and 200 lbs. He got up to 205, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he has dropped some during the season.
Thanks Karmaloop for the update. What was Rosie FB velocity topping out at and what did it sat at?
He didn’t know, there was no stadium gun, and he didn’t check with the charters. In Rosie’s game last Saturday in Springfield, he was ranging 92-98 per the charts.
Like RCHIII said, no gun so I couldn’t tell for sure. But it looked like he was in the mid 90s range.
In a game earlier this year he was sitting at 96-97, topped out at 101, and hit 100 a few times. I wasn’t sure how much that should be discounted given Hammons’ gun’s reputation, but the opposing starter sat at 91-92. Fornataro was the only pitcher to hit the upper 90s at 97-98.
The announcer had him hitting 944,94, 95 and 96 in the 7th.