I’m currently catching the Rome Braves in Lakewood NJ and watching the big team on MLB Gameday and radio. One of these is going far better than the other! I’ve been taking notes, so here they are.

Top 1

This is the tightest strike zone I have ever seen. Southesene takes ball 2 and trots to first base.

Hartman legit walks but now the Blue Claws manager and the ump get into it. I haven’t seen a good managerial blowup in some time. Pretty tame, all things considered this time.

Dixon Williams is hitting again although he still seems to be moving too much in the box – kind of like Ichiro! But not as successful. Long homer here.

Bot 1

Zach Royse on the bump. 7th rounder last year thrown right into A+ to start his career. He needs 2-3 mph more to be interesting although the scout in attendance says he might have that in his arm as he has the frame for it. Interesting thought. Detroit scout btw, better not be looking at Mr Hartman!

Top 3

I’ve wanted to talk about Owen Carey for awhile and haven’t had the chance. Here, he hits a screamer that the first baseman makes a terrific play on. Carey has been snakebit by the injury bug for most of his career in the Braves system, always showing great tools that quite obviously need refinement. He started the season this year with an oblique and has only started to get going in the last month or so (OPS close to 1000). As he is still only 19 he is another one to watch. 

Bottom 3

Royse just walked a guy on 1 ball and 5 strikes. Wow

Top 4

Mason Guerra is a flashy fielding first baseman who has never hit for either power nor average. He’s having a nice game tonight with a double in the 1st and a homer here. You can see the work the coaches have put into him as his ground out to air out ratio has decreased pretty much monthly over his milb career. This is a 13th round draft pick. My hometown milb team is an Astros affiliate and I have never seen the coaches pay attention to any of the role players. I like the way our organization works.

And now a guy just drew a 4 pitch walk on 4 pitches in the zone. None were close calls either. Zounds!

Top 5

Owen Carey homers. Guess I called that one ?

Bottom 6

Royse has had a good game, giving up 1 run with a 5-2 k/bb which is hard to fathom with this umpire. He was about 2-1 on the groundballs too. Nice work, kid!

Final 8-4

Some final thoughts through the beer haze. I’m not sure we can depend on minor league strikeout and walk info all the time. I have come to believe that strikeouts are a definitive signal but that the walks may not be. In other words, John Gil’s 42/67 k/bb (22.5% k/14.7% bb)  this season likely shows some small problems with the K’s but might not be indicative of great plate discipline. As a team we drew 8 walks tonight and should have only had 3 or so.