FanPost

Pelicans vs. Winston-Salem Dash: 7/19

So, I headed down to Myrtle tonight for the Pelicans game and Tim Hudson's first rehab start. I took some photos, but, given that the combination of my seat location (way down the 1B line right up against the picnic pavilion netting) and camera (my dad's backup that he loaned me) wasn't very good, I'll only post them if people ask. Below, I'll share my totally amateur scouting notes on the game.

First, my overall game notes:

* My family has a place in N. Myrtle Beach, so I've been going there for about 20 years and have been to Pelicans games upwards of 20 times, so these aren't exactly newcomer impressions.

* With almost 6,000 fans, this was the 9th-highest attendance in Pelicans history. I think the record was set last summer in one of Glavine's rehab starts. This game completed a seven-game homestand in which the Pelicans set a new attendance record for a stretch of that length. They pulled a mark of 30,805 for these games, breaking the previous standard of 30,173 from 7/31 to 8/6 last year (which included the aforementioned Glavine start.)

* Both times I've been this year, it's been striking to me how much better the MB uniforms look relative to their competition. I'm fully convinced they just want to sell merchandise to the tourists, but that must feel good for the guys who pass through here.

* I heard DMB played, which is a rare occurrence from my experience. This was neat.

* Vanna White (a North Myrtle Beach product) has a new video clip in support of the Pelicans. Good for her, given they have a freaking sign in NMB dedicated to her having grown up there. I guess it's the same as my hometown of High Point, NC, who used to tout Fantasia Barrino as a resident, illiteracy be damned.

* it's always interesting to see your team put up two runs before their second hit, but former 7th-rounder Jacob Rasner (who's been pretty good as a starter and reliever over the last couple of years) seemed to get wild at the wrong times, even though he only gave up three walks total. He's a really lanky kid with a short delivery.

* Tim Hudson's night was pretty good. He was going to throw 40 pitches or two innings, whichever came first, something of a disappointment to me given I had heard 3 IP. He pitched a very Huddy-esque game, throwing his two innings in a very economical 28 pitches (20 strikes.) He issued one walk (on several very close pitches), got two strikeouts, and recorded two flyouts (a pair of balls hit well to CF that died up in the air; there was a solid wind blowing in from center) to go with a pair of groundouts to the right side. The first came right at 1B Gerry Rodriguez, who made a great diving play that could have saved a run. If the ball had gotten through, Justin Greene (who drew the Hudson walk) probably would have gotten to third and scored on the subsequent Brent Morel deep flyout. The second was a pretty routine groundout to 2B Mike Fisher to start the 2nd. Huddy worked quickly and threw a ton of strikes, but that had something to do with the fact that he got a ton of bad-ball swinging strikes. From my poor vantage point, I couldn't tell a lot about the movement on his pitches (and I was too dumb to pay attention to the posted gun until the last few ABs for velocity...the recap had him in the low 90s), but I would certainly guess that major-leaguers aren't gonna make those kinds of mistakes. As for crowd reaction, it was a pretty dead crowd overall, but they perked up whenever Huddy's name was mentioned. I was surprised at how many people stayed once he came out of the game, but I guess that's the combination of "Hey, I paid for the ticket, I might as well stay" and people just plain not noticing. Huddy didn't sign autographs at all outside of the MR people who were there as part of a Miracle League outing, and when I stopped by the back of the players' lot at the end of the game (which has worked for me before...Marcus Giles once signed for me and about 10-15 other people who had waited for him in a thunderstorm in '04), I was told he had left after he finished.

Now, on to the other kids:

* Ernie Mejia had a real ugly CS early in the game that I couldn't understand other than total mental inawareness, but he redeemed himself later with an Arby's RBI, which gets me a free sandwich. Hooray. Also, the dude (listed at 6'6", 190) is huge.

* Jacob Thompson came in for Huddy after the 2nd, and actually did pretty well. He started out a bit wild in his first inning, but I figured that may have had something to do with the fact that he came on in relief, because he settled down. Without having ever played or coached baseball, I don't know much about his mechanics or anything, but it did seem to me that his release point is really short. It seemed like the ball was out of his hand before it even got past his body. With a shutout going in the 9th, he was left in to close out the game, but after a walk and a hit, he was pulled, and Pat Currin let both runs in (although two runners with no outs is a tough jam to get out of scoreless.)

* Robert Marcial, who's sorta terrible at the plate (career 558 OPS after five seasons) at least has a pretty good arm. He made a couple plays deep in the hole. Also, he joined in with the grounds crew in a new MBP tradition of dancing the "Apache (Jump on It)" dance as they rake down the field mid-game. Kudos for him, although he's probably noticed by now that the crowd loves it.

* CJ Lee, who's never impressed me in the two or three times I've seen him (although he did sign my Pelicans hat graciously for me), had a nice AB where he got down but then showed some patience and earned a BB. Then again, with less than 20 BBs on the year, it probably isn't a sign of things to come.

* Cody Johnson: Cody set the single-season MB HR record (and held his minor-league lead) tonight with his 24th. It was a bit of a cheapie, landing in the first couple of rows in LF (the Winston-Salem LF attempted a play on it, if that tells you anything), but it did get out. I was a bit disappointed in the overall crowd reaction, both initially and after the next inning change, when it was announced, but hey, you can't expect the people who show up to Pelicans games to know what's up with the prospects as a whole. I told him congrats after the game, and he seemed pretty nonplussed about the whole thing. Probably ready to move on to the next level, I guess. He did hit the kind of foul in his first AB that proves the legit power of bigtime prospects, driving it home run distance on a foul that he actually seemed to mishit. He also had a nice AB early in the game where he got himself from 0-2 to 3-2 before making an out. A good sign for a guy whose plate discipline we're concerned about. I was also interested in how W-S played him at one point: with runners on 2nd and 3rd and no outs in the 4th of a 0-0 game, they pitched to him (although Ernie Mejia's .315+ BA provides him some solid protection.) He ended up grounding in, and though he picked up the RBI and advanced the runner on 2nd, the fact that A+ pitchers know they can take him on and not hurt their team could be something of a concern moving forward. He also stole his 9th base of the year tonight (on 13 attempts), which put him in position to score on a Mejia single, so he knows how to pick his spots to run (at least at this level.) Defensively, I saw him take a couple of bad routes, including one that put him some 10-15 feet too far in for a foul pop he probably should have caught late in the game.

* Cole Miles (who played CF tonight) takes pretty terrible routes, but seems to get the job done. He also throws pretty easy for as good an arm as he seems to have. He is really small, though this is probably to be expected, liisted at 5'8", 165.)

* Benji Johnson, whom I've always liked (probably for his name), hit a homer and flashed a good arm in throwing out Kent Gerst.

Finally, a couple of Dash (what a stupid team name) notes:

* C Logan Johnson, a decent (if old) prospect with an 836 career OPS, was the one who broke up the shutout. Fuck him. And his family, for that matter. If you're only in high A by 25, you should have just quit and given up and let us have our shutout.

* Jimmy Gallagher, one of my former boys from Duke (OPSing 919 and 1020 his last two years there), is really small for a 1B. He's listed at 6'1", 195, but it would really surprise me if he's that big. Dale Mollenhauer is an SS by trade who DHed tonight, and he also struck me as being really small. I guess I might have thought different if I had known he was an MI during the game.

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