Myrtle Beach @ Potomac 7-27

Yep, another long ass post with way too many pictures. My dad enjoyed seeing the Danville guys so much that he decided to go with me up to Woodbridge to see the Pelicans take on the P-Nats. Fortunately, pops is as much of a ballpark floutlaw as I am and we turned our general admission tickets into first row seats overlooking the Myrtle Beach on deck circle.

As anyone who's read my posts would know, I'm all about getting some autographs, and the guys did not disappoint. I had the rare (at least for any non-Braves team) clean sweep, getting every card I brought signed. Here's Jacob Thompson, Cody Johnson, Gerry Rodriguez, Randy Gress, Brandon Beachy, and Cole Rohrbough taking care of the fans.

During BP I was watching the pitchers throw with each other and realized that the team has two sidearmers, Rudy Darrow and Cory Gearrin, and one pitcher, Craig Kimbrel, who throws with a low 3/4 delivery. That's half a bullpen's worth of funky deliveries:

Unfortunately, Darrow hasn't had a great season; after getting bombed out in Mississippi, things haven't been much better after his demotion to Myrtle Beach. He and fellow reliever Pat Currin allowed 9 runs (8 earned) in 1.2 innings, helping Potomac to a blowout 14-9 blowout victory. Gearrin, on the other hand, has been incredibly dominant at the beach and in AA, working on a 2.25 ERA for the season. Why he's back in High A is a mystery to everyone. He pitched the 8th in this game and made the hitters look foolish.

I didn't get to see Kimbrel pitch this time, but what I did get was maybe my favorite picture I've ever taken:

It's a little more grainy that I'd like, but I love the dead on angle. Glad to see that he got the promotion to AA and even more glad that he figured out the problems he was having the first part of the year.

While we're on the subject of relievers, here's a few pictures of the diminutive Benino Pruneda:

Unfortunately I didn't get to see hm throw, but I have before and it's the most baffling thing ever. How a guy who's literally 5'6" can throw 100 mph is beyond me. And he doesn't even turn 21 for a week. This guy is definitely in Atlanta's plans.

A guy I did get to see throw was last year's 5th round pick, Jacob Thompson:

It was one of the quickest bullpen sessions I've ever seen, I swear he didn't throw 15 pitches, but he looked sharp and in control. It's odd that he's actually been better at High A than he was at Low A, but some guys are like that.

One intersting thing was watching the guys notice that the visitor's bullpen is crooked:

Gotta love the minor leagues.

While we're on the subject of pitchers, Richard Sullivan started the game and pitched pretty well, despite the less than stellar results:

He had a few rough innings, aided by his middle infielders kicking the ball around, but overall he showed great poise and polish. If you look at his season's numbers, they're not that stellar, but I'm sure moving from one team to another for a good portion of the season didn't help things.

Well, with the promotions of Jason Heyward and Freddie Freeman, the only real offensive draw for the Pelicans is the thumper, Cody Johnson:

Cody gets a lot of crap about his stats, well, his strikeouts, but what I see is a guy with as much power as any player the Braves have ever had who has improved leaps and bounds over the course of his pro career. Who knows, he may find upper level pitching impossible to deal with, but I believe in this kid's ability and work ethic. He had a little bit of an abdominal injury this night and it clearly affected him, though not too badly as he still notched a pair of singles and RBIs. In fact, it might be a good thing for him; in BP he wasn't swinging as hard as he normally does and he was still crushing the ball. Think how good he could be if he realizes his natural power can carry him. 

I've mentioned before his unusual pre-pitch breathing, which you can see in the first of the pictures above, and I took a little video of it:

I didn't mean to get the whole at bat, but I couldn't get my video editor to work right. (Video Link)

Aside from Cody, the next most interesting hitter on the team is Gerry Rodriguez:

Like Thompson, he seems to be playing better at the higher level. He's only 21 and has been getting better as a hitter. I love that the Yankees were too dumb to hold on to a guy this good. The best thing about Gerry, aside from three hit performances like the one he had this game, is that he's a big clown who keeps everybody loose.

Our Minor League guru yodaime14 has a real affinity for catchers, one which I share, and Jesus Sucre is proving to be a guy worth getting excited about:

He's an outstanding defensive catcher, an error in this game not withstanding, and he's been a fine hitter, sometimes. He was the GCL MVP a few years ago, but seemed to forget how to hit last year. Then, this season, he rediscovered his stroke and dominated at Rome. His hitting has taken a severe downturn at Myrtle Beach again, so who really knows what the Braves have with him.

Speaking of yodaime14, his breakout candidate for this season, Chris Shehan, has been a bit disappointing. He really hasn't played that many games and you get the feeling that he's only in High A to fill a roster hole. Anyway, looking at his batting stance makes me think that it's his basic problem:

Obviously, everyone has their own way of doing things, but, at least to me, that's a batting stance that leads to slap hits and no power, and, frankly, Shehan isn't fast enough to make that work. But, in limited time at MB he's played better, so maybe he can pull a Thompson and Rodriguez.

And finally, everyone loves to make jokes about him, so at the very least you should know what he looks like; here's Randy Gress:

I actually saw Randy with Danville a few days before this. As he put it, "It's a lot better seeing you here." I'm not going to pretend that I think he's a prospect, he's not. But, he is a versatile player who's willing to work his ass off and not complain if he doesn't get to play. He's what Minor League teams need; he's a little, sometimes a lot, older than his teammates and he's a good example.

As always, hope you enjoyed the pictures. If there's anyone you're particularly interested in just let me know, if I have a good one, or two, I'm more than happy to put them up.