Well, since most of the guys I have been following all year at Rome have moved up to AA: Hello Columbus! This was my first visit to Synovus Park as it is about a 300 mile journey from Asheville.
First, some thoughts:
Although the park hails from 1926 it suffered severe damage in the 2000’s and has been rebuilt. It is very nice! The pulled pork souvenir nachos (served in a mini-batting helmet) are pricey but delish. The beer selection was nothing special (I’m spoiled by Asheville and Greenville where I catch most of my games). Prices are higher than Rome but still 2/3 of what you pay in Cobb Co. Seats are a good deal wider here than at other ballparks which is nice.
Our AA team has been a wasteland for prospects this season until this last wave of promotions, so I didn’t even bother when they came to Knoxville earlier in the year. They have some exciting stuff going on now, however!
Tate Southesene broke his hand in his 2nd at bat after promotion last month so we get to look at a different double play combo.
John Gil has been discussed here before and on my last viewing looked noticably tired and slow. i’m pleased to say he has perked back up. He has made a good start offensively and is playing great D at 2nd base. In this game he just missed a homer and had a grounder go for a single. The strikeouts are still too high — 27% here, 26% on the season — but he is still taking his walks. All in all a good beginning for the level. I also think we can now say 2nd base is his future MLB home.
Eric Hartman has now moved up all the national lists to the top 30 or so. In this game he hit one long ball that got stuck in the wind at the wall and he looked to have a good approach in his other at bats. He is running an 11/19 bb/so so far which is too many of both in 60ish PAs at AA. I don’t think he saw even one fastball last night:)
Alex Lodise just got the call 2 games ago and I must say he has impressed me with the changes to his game. It still looks like fastballs up are a problem but he just no longer swings at pitches away with the result being that the 33% strikeout rate from Augusta has been at 10% at Rome and Columbus. He also looks far smoother in the field. He hit his 25th homer of the season and it was a laser to right center rather than pulled and that is a good sign. I need more data to fully buy in but this is the best he has looked in the Braves system.
Owen Carey is off to a slow start but he always needs some adjustment time at every level. His approach and his fielding look fine.
On the pitching side, Garrett Baumann has had a nightmare of a season where his mechanics have been all fouled up, and at 6’8″ you do not want the pieces tangled. Last start he was terrific and he was very good here, albeit with less swing and miss than one would expect from his velocity and extension. To put it in perspective he had 18 whiffs on 96 pitches which is very good but not quite elite. At just 22 years old he still has a chance to be a good No 3 on a MLB team. A better change would help considerably.
Up the road in Chicago the Hair was on fire and the bats did just enough to take a 2-0 victory. Tonight we’re on to Milwaukee to face, if the pundits are to be believed, the best pitcher ever. Go team
Reminder: game @ 4:10
Pretty sure that this is the first time that my hometown of Columbus, Ga., & Kerouac’s “On the Road” have ever been bundled quite like that.
When I was a kid, that place was called Golden Park & it was the home of the Astros’ Double-A Southern League club. Now, they’re called the Columbus Clingstones.
Thnx, snowshinedog
AW c’mon, ububba. I was at Patterson Field in Montgomery when they were the Redels and Detroit’s AA team. Whitaker and Trammell came through together.
A lot of MLB players came through like Jack Morris, Lance Parrish, Dan Petry, etc….
Also thanks, snowshinedog. Golden Park also hosted 1996 Olympic softball, and the multi-field complex built for the Olympics still gets a good bit of use in amateur tournaments. Nearly 100% of the commercially grown clingstone peaches grown in the US come from California, so I’ve been pointlessly protesting against the Clingstones name by not going to any of the team’s games. The team’s out-of-town owners or and/management seem aware of the issue, because their Facebook page has an interview with a farmer from Fort Valley who grows them.
P.S. If any of you have read the book Theo of Golden, which is set in a very thinly disguised downtown Columbus and whose #2 character (the artist) is based on a guy I play cards with occasionally, there’s a connection to the park. The maiden name of the artist’s late mom, an important unseen character in the book, was Golden, and the park is named after her grandfather Theodore Golden, who founded the still-operating Golden’s Foundry. The author made her maiden name the name of the city and her grandfather’s first name the name of the main character.
Yeah, back then (’70s/early ‘80s), the Southern League seemed to swap clubs every year or so, but I remember seeing teams from Savannah (Braves), Montgomery (Tigers), Asheville/Charlotte (Orioles), Birmingham (A’s), Nashville (Yankees), Memphis (Expos), Knoxville (White Sox) & Orlando (Twins).
Pretty much anybody who made it to The Show from those clubs we got to see… Dale Murphy, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, J.R. Richard, Lyman Bostock, the Tigers keystone combo… etc.
And to think AA thought Contreras wouldn’t improve as a defensive catcher, so he had to trade for Murphy.
That trade aged like old milk.
Two runs. Miz on the mound. Ballgame.
exactly what I was thinking. I figured the Braves can only win if they throw a shutout (like against the White Sox).
Riley swinging at more pitches out of the zone.
Just keep it close, maybe scratch a run & get Miz out of there. He’s at 79 pitches & he won’t pitch the whole game.
Thing is… Miz just has next-level action on that heater – it’s rare to see Major League hitters not even reacting to certain pitches b/c it’s on them so quickly. There are some guys in the lineup, like Riley, that he shouldn’t even bother trying to fool with anything tricky or off-speed. You’d be doing him a favor.
Wow, that was another Clemente-like throw from RAJ.
EDIT: And like this guy even needs a circus catch in CF….
The Brewers make a lot of good plays on the OF
Maybe don’t foolishly challenge those arms after a leadoff single against a struggling reliever?
That was as good a double play as I can remember
Recapped