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Picture by Tim Campbell/MiLB
June twenty third, 2023 Scoreboard
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One facet of Kyle Harm‘s sport that stands out probably the most is the flexibility to overlook bats, and on Friday evening, that penchant for whiffs was on full show for Tulsa:
Of the 948 minor league pitchers who’ve tossed 30.0 or extra innings, Harm’s swinging strike charge of 21.3% ranks sixth. Appears good! His Okay-BB charge of 31.6% ranks eighth. Additionally appears good!
The burly righty did surrender his fifth longball of the season, it’s the 4th he has allowed in his final 5 outings, a stretch throughout which he has been touched up a bit basically, as his ERA rose from 1.33 to three.89 throughout this timeframe. This era of minor fallibility has coincided with Harm going through groups for a second or third time this season, however that’s an evidence that lasts solely so lengthy, since ideally you’ll see the identical main league groups repeatedly and once more.
For the 25-year-old, assuming he continues on a beginning pitcher’s improvement observe, efficiently altering issues up and attacking hitters alternative ways, whereas limiting the errors, and persevering with to ramp up the workload, ought to all be within the marching order as Tulsa approaches the midway mark of their season. No matter occurs long-term, the electrical energy he brings is simple, and in considering of 2023, for a bullpen that has been simply common at lacking bats (24.3% strikeout charge vs 23.7% MLB broad for relievers), Harm is perhaps yet one more Tulsa arm who may bolster the massive membership in some unspecified time in the future.
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Jorbit Vivas had a superb throughout day on the plate for Tulsa on Friday evening, going 2/3, with a single, a stroll, a stolen base, and this dinger to proper:
The 22-year-old Venezuelan raised his slash line for the season to an excellent .301/.407/.478, with extra walks (30) than strikeouts (27). However, it hasn’t all been sunshine for Vivas both, who, after a scorching April throughout which he OPSed 1.125, he slipped all the way in which right down to .611 in Might. In June, the OPS popped proper again up once more, to .916. As so typically appears to be the case, Vivas is probably going neither nearly as good because the blistering begin, nor as unhealthy as the next tank, however that top middle-ish spot he’s at present occupying continues to be a heck of a ballplayer.
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When the Dominican Summer season League kicked off, after figuring out collectively all offseason, and spending all of camp collectively, collaborating in innumerable stay ABs, intrasquads, and so forth, the 2 Dodger groups, Bautista and Mega, opened the season towards one another. I used to be somewhat nonplussed by that, assuming that the youngest Dodger farmhands could be champing on the bit to check their mettle towards new, of-age competitors all throughout the Caribbean island nation.
Little did I do know.
For a bit background, coming into the fourth matchup of the season between the 2 teams of Campo Las Palmas denizens, Dodgers Bautista had a file of 13-0, the place each different staff on the island has misplaced no less than thrice.
Dodgers Mega had a file of 8-2 after they’re not taking part in Bautista, however 8-5 total. That’s proper — Mega had misplaced all three blue on blue contests to this point.
With all of that in thoughts, enter Elias Medina of Mega, who got here up within the backside of the sixth of a scheduled 7-inning ballgame, with Bautista main 4-3:
That bat vertically helicoptering throughout the highest of the display? Pouring onto the sector? The salutes? Inject all of that straight into my veins.
Bautista went on to attain within the prime of the seventh, and closed out their 14th W of the season within the backside half of the body, working their file to 14-0 (now 15-0 after Friday’s victory), and Mega dropped to 8-6 (now 9-6).
These are two tremendously proficient teams, they each realize it, and one in all them has gotten the higher of the opposite in each matchup to this point. The following time they play one another is on July sixth, and also you higher imagine that one’s circled on everybody’s calendar down there.
As for the newborn Justin Turner doppelganger, Elias Medina, the January 2023 IFA signee is off to an unimaginable begin, slashing .327/.393/.618, with 3 doubles, 2 triples, 3 homers, and 9 stolen bases with simply 1 caught stealing in his first 13 contests. Listed at 5’10, 171 lbs, the Bani, DR native is constantly working 6.3 second 60 yard instances, cementing him as a 70 runner for the time being, and he’s projected to remain on the filth, with the Dodgers splitting his time between 2B, 3B, and SS to this point.
You may’t inform an entire heck of loads about these youngsters till they make it to full season competitors, and Medina is probably going two years from that, so I’m not right here to inform anybody he’s the following famous person prospect within the system. However, he’s an indicator of fine course of; he signed for $177.5k, which, whereas not a completely paltry sum, is unquestionably on the decrease finish of an IFA system that noticed bonuses as excessive as $5.6 million for the interval, so a considerable amount of legwork seemingly went into figuring out and agreeing to a take care of a participant who is definitely making the scouting administrators from opposing golf equipment scratch their heads. Getting giant swaths of those sorts of plus-plus athletes within the system, absolute toolsheds, with stable swings, and already displaying really feel for barrel, regardless of having the bottom bonus pool but once more, is a coup. Certainly one of these lotto tickets is certain to hit. If it occurs to be one of many guys like Medina, who’s a hell of a whole lot of enjoyable, all the higher.
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Peter Heubeck put collectively one other robust outing for Rancho Cucamonga on Friday, tossing 5.0 scoreless IP of one-hit ball, strolling 2, and hanging out 6, and giving the 20-year-old one of the best two-start stretch of his younger profession:
The Baltimore, MD native has had, as younger pitchers are wont to do, bouts of dominance interspersed with head-scratching clunkers this season, however the sky-high ceiling that motivated the Dodgers to pick him within the third spherical of the 2021 draft is most positively nonetheless current, and he’s trending in the precise path. His strike share is up, from 56% in 2022 to 61% in 2023, and his strikeout charge is up, from 29.6% to 32.9%. His stroll charge is down, from 17.6% to 13.4%, and his HR/9 is down, from 1.99 to 1.05. All in all, he seems to be closing in on dialing it in sufficient to probably earn a bump to Nice Lakes a while within the second half, and stringing collectively one other handful outings collectively may very well be simply the ticket.
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Reynaldo Yean, who was one in all my FOMO helium picks from March, is off to a blazing scorching begin for the ACL Dodgers:
After I wrote about him, I discussed that he profiled as a reliever solely, and the Dodgers appear to agree, as six of seven appearances have been of the one inning selection. That mentioned, with such overwhelming stuff, you’d assume he’d be Westward certain earlier than too lengthy. However, I don’t know what it takes to get a ticket from Glendale, AZ, to Rancho Cucamonga, CA handed to you lately, although I think about one thing like this often will get it performed.
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Gavin Stone had one other outing on Friday. Whereas his displaying was lower than very best, it wasn’t with out positives:
The primary query right here is whether or not the velo uptick is borne out of utilization — Stone threw simply 21 fastballs out of 88 pitches, which quantities to a really restricted utilization clip of twenty-two%.
What instantly involves thoughts for me is the stellar 2020 marketing campaign turned in by Yu Darvish, who dropped his fastball utilization, 4 seam and a couple of seam mixed, down to simply 24.8%, whereas averaging a profession finest 95.5 mph with the pitch, and posting what was on the time, a career-high +3.1 runs prevented with the his 4 seamer. If you’re solely throwing 25ish heaters a sport, you’ll be able to in all probability afford to grunt and put as a lot mustard on them as attainable with out impacting your capacity to go deep into video games. Darvish did this whereas additionally throwing a cutter, a splitter, a changeup, a slider, and each a tough and a sluggish curve, so he was buoyed by each an eclectic pitch combine, and the savvy to successfully deploy it.
Stone’s solely secondaries are a changeup and a slider. Once you begin turning the lineup over a second or a 3rd time, as was the case on Friday, residing in dying with the identical pair of secondaries can turn into a bit problematic.
So, whereas it’s a optimistic that the velo ticked up, wanting past simply the radar gun readings, a bigger in-game pattern is important to really feel assured about Stone’s velo returning to its 2022 kind in an efficient method.
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Lastly, pitchers are athletes, exhibit 72-D:
Gavin, please for the love of all that’s holy, take notes.
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Right here’s Saturday’s begin instances for the minor-league golf equipment (all instances Pacific), together with the Dodger affiliate’s beginning pitcher:
- Oklahoma Metropolis vs Las Vegas – 5:05 PM, TBD
- Tulsa vs Northwest Arkansas – 5:05 PM, Nick Nastrini
- Nice Lakes at West Michigan – 4:05 PM, Hyun-il Choi
- Rancho Cucamonga vs Lake Elsinore – 6:30 PM, TBD
- ACL Dodgers vs ACL D-backs Purple – 10:00 AM, TBD
- DSL Dodgers Bautista vs DSL Braves – 7:00 AM, TBD
- DSL Dodgers Mega at DSL Pirates Black – 7:00 AM, TBD
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Take pleasure in your Saturday, people.
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