We have some excellent content schedule for you today, including:
- ON Top 50 Prospects – #13: Ryan Adams
- Getting Defensive: Analyzing Baltimore’s Defensive Efficiency
- Scouting Zach Britton‘s Big League Debut
- Tigers vs. Orioles Series Previews
It’s been just three games, but this is nice to see (Photo: CC):
Camden Depot discusses the pros and cons of bringing up Zach Britton:
The original plan was for Britton to pick up a month or two in Norfolk before sliding into the rotation in Baltimore, thereby giving the Orioles and additional year of control over his contract. If he now spends less than 20 days from here on in the minors outside of rehabilitation stints, that year comes back to the Orioles. You may remember that this was exactly what happened to JJ Hardy when Milwaukee optioned him to the minors in 2009 and prevented him from entering free agency last off season.
Dempsey’s Army provides us with some Pitch F/X from Chris Tillman’s six no-hit innings:
Tillman stayed in or around the strike zone pretty well last night. He threw 57.4% of his pitches for strikes. He only exceeded that percentage three times all last season when he threw 6 or more innings. Not surprisingly, his line looked very good for two of those games and he got the win.
Tillman’s stuff plays in the zone. He froze hitters, got swinging strikes and had the lineup off balance all night. There were only two well-struck balls all night by my count.
Zach Britton had a lot to say about his big league debut:
“I was really excited. It really wasn’t as bad. I remember spring training with Philly when I was really just everywhere. It wasn’t that bad. After that first inning I started to get a lot more comfortable out on the mound, but at the same time I was really excited.
“We canned the sinker,” he said. “We were throwing four-seams all day and they hit some balls hard, but I think I was too amped up today to throw the sinker, so I wasn’t able to get the ground balls that I wanted to. But I had to be able to go to four-seam to be able to throw strikes. I was walking guys with the sinker, so there was really no reason to watch that. The off-speed pitches were there, especially the changeup, so thankfully they were there without the sinker.”
I’m still waiting on the minor league rosters but when they arrive in my inbox I’ll have them posted ASAP.
