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Inning 1

Taijuan wasn't interested in steering anything ... except, perhaps, a wood chipper over Alex Gordon's prone carcass.  The sequence:

• 94 MPH right down the heart, Poached Strike 1 to open the game (I got yer 'courtesy strike' right here, pal)
• 95 heater overthrown, 1-1
• 91 slider comes back and catches the black, Taijuan ahead 1-2
• 97 MPH JAM PITCH, KNEE HIGH INSIDE BLACK seeya wouldn wanna beya

Giving a glimpse of the sort of scorched-earth Kevin Brown carnage that Taijuan will someday foist routinely on the hapless AL.  "Someday" meaning like May 2014, we're supposing.

Taijuan didn't locate anything on September 4th.  Someday he will locate everything.  When that day comes, some day on which he isn't still 21 years of age, he might be better than Felix  he might be better than Christy Mathewson.

...........

Second batter, Christy  Taijuan unloaded three 94-96-95 high fastballs for a 2-1 count, and then threw a vicious cutter Right. Down. the. Heart. that broke so much that the lefty Beneficio popped up to catcher.   On a middle-middle cutter.

...........

Third consecutive LH batter, Eric Hosmer, it is again well worth going through the pitches singly:

• 96 fastball on the black ::coughPinedacough:: 0-1
• (Cutter spiked in the dirt, 1-1)
• SWEEEEEET yakker.  1-2.    Dr. D burst into tears.  See Appendix A below.
• History's first 94 MPH cutter, low-in, somehow fouled off ... not "somehow."  See Appendix B below.   From precisely this point on, the Royals "cheated" on every single pitch, the rest of the night.
• 97 fastball overthrown to the backstop ::coughunitkrukcough:: 
• (97 fastball low-in, 2-2)
• 97 fastball on the black, garbage swing strike ::coughPinedacough:: strike three 

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he threw well, the entire night ... check me, there was one other.  But this curve was a Michaelangelo.  This one, isolated, curve was ---- > Pedro Martinez' overhand curve, and then some.  It was better than Pedro's, because sharper-breaking and at a larger velo delta.

.............

Has anybody checked Taijuan's birthday?  The day will come when he throws that Pedro curve routinely.... THIS, gentlemen, is what it feels like to be a scout who is imagining a future product, two years down the line.  You can just seeeee what would happen, that 97 MPH heater with a Pedro overhand curve ball.

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Appendix B:  94 MPH with Gloveside Break

Ya, the fourth pitch to Hosmer broke IN on him.  I suppose Mariano threw a few like that when he was younger, these mid-90's cutters.  ;- )

Randy Johnson's power slider was 87-89 MPH.  Visualize it at 94.   Thass' a Proah-blaim.  (Hosmer, having seen three distinct unhittable pitches, struck out meekly a few pitches later.)

Full disclosure:  Taijuan's cutter doesn't always mesh well with his 97 fastball; sometimes it "speeds up" the hitter's bat.  That's another discussion.  But in a vacuum, well ... the three guys who threw 87+ cutters recently, Halladay, Haren and Lee*.   Located properly, it completely neutralizes lefties.*

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