1
apparently :-)
How to do it in High Desert
For those who haven't met him per this screen name, Rick used to publish Caffeinated Confines. Hope to hear his angle on the M's frequently. Welcome Rick! - Jeff
........
It's well documented that High Desert is Life To Flying Things, as pop flies are easily turned into home runs. Mariner farmhand Chris Sorce has it figured out, however, Last night he pitched 7 innings of no earned run ball.
Success was due to a very impressive 12/3 GB/FB rate to go with 4 Ks and no walks. He was let down by an error by highly regarded gloveman Gabriel Noriega, and so didn't get the win. But it appears that overall, Gabe and 2nd baseman Nick Franklin still did their part in providing solid backup for a worm killing performance.
It must have been a fun game for the infield overall. Oh yeah. Three flies in 7 innings. Sorce hasn't thrown a walk yet this season in his 2 starts. More, please.
Comments
2
Giving Franklin more chances to improve with the glove is always a good thing. Looks like he's gonna split time more evenly between 2B and SS potentially.
His sac bunt in the final inning was a thing of beauty though - I loved seeing High Desert play small ball for just a day.
Sorce is doing extremely well - but so are most of the pitchers in High Desert so far. It's the offense that needs to get it in gear. Franklin started off with a couple of 0-fers and 2 missed games but has really come around after that.
And Catricala is gonna have a monster season if he keeps this up. Jones, though...ouch. He's gotta get some hits.
I would think most of the pitchers at HD are future bullpenners, not starters, but I would have thought that of Vargas and Fister too. Sorce throws low 90s, so it's not like he can't survive with it. Keep it up, kid - I'd love to get some starting potential out of some of our HD arms.
~G
3
You don't hear much about him, G_Mon, but he looks like he has some pop in his bat. Nice little season in Clinton last year. Sounds like you live in the neighborhood. I'm looking forward to hearing more from you about these guys.
4
Was it in Colorado?
Ya, that's their M.O., to develop as much flexibility as possible with all their gloves, giving them options when they all (LOL) hit the beaches together in the majors...
There are disadvantages to that, natch, such as the attention subtracted from offense and applied to defense... but as James wrote in the early '80's, "It's the job of all major league organizations to fight the rightward drift of the defensive spectrum..."
If you didn't think about it, you'd wake up one day with 90% first basemen. The M's do manage a good job of fighting the 1B/LF pileup.
5
When HQ didn't have him among their org top 35 prospects... some have him well into the top 20...
Thanks again for the update Rick... if you and Spec worked twice as much minors territory as we've had, it still wouldn't be half enough...
:knuckles: