Wed. 9/6 - Timber Rattlers' Early Start. Mudcats' Magic Number Down to 2!

[Joseph Zarr]

Dorrian meets the pitching replacement with a deep double off the RF wall scoring Roller from 2B. It's 4-1 Sounds now in the 6th frame.

[TheeAirbender]

I wish I was as good at something as Tyler Black is at drawing walks.

[Joseph Zarr]

Well, Gregory Barrios hit his first long ball of his Low-A career. Never too late for the power punch! BUT, Chavez had already conceded two runs the inning prior (not that it mattered tonight). 8-3 Salem wins. Not an easy first homer either for Barrios:

 

[Joseph Zarr]

McKendry is on the precipice of pitching 7 complete. He just grabbed his 5th K (his first since the 4th) and got a weak bloop to Dorrian at SS. Dominant tonight. He will exit leading 4-1. Seven complete innings. You love to see it!

[Joseph Zarr]

Shuckers trailing 4-2 in the top of the 5th. Sparks just led off with a full count walk. Man on first. Nobody down. 

Meanwhile, the Biscuits and Lookouts are knotted 2-2 in the 8th. Big implications tonight in the Southern League!

[Joseph Zarr]

Isaac Collins two run line drive jack over the LF wall scores Sparks! 4-4 game. Zero outs. YEAH BABY!!!! Already on base with a single and a free pass he takes an outside breaking ball and sits on it just enough to blast it over the HR rail - maybe two rows deep. Whewwwww!

 

[Joseph Zarr]

Hey now! Lynchburg got blown out 12-3 tonight. Mudcats magic number, despite their 8-3 loss is ONE. ONE win. ONE Lynchburg loss over the next 4 games and we are post-season swimming.

[Joseph Zarr]

Durham won again tonight (five straight) over Charlotte. So the Sounds, should they manage to hold this lead, will remain 5.5 GB. SO many teams between the Sounds and the Bulls. Their poor form at Durham in their recent series was so costly to any notions of a post-season bid. Not very likely at this point but still mathematically possible.

[Joseph Zarr]

Abad works around a two out triple and gets the weak grounder to Devanney at 2B. Sounds win 4-1. 

Meanwhile RHP Ryan Middendorf is running into his own two out trouble here in the bottom of the 6th in the form of a full count walk and an absurdly high chopper to the 1B side where both Martinez and Middendorf were caught in an unfavorable situation. Now a pitch count violation and a high heater have him 2-0. Runners on 1st and 2nd. Two down. He gets the weak 2-0 grounder to a charging Zamora at SS who fires accurately to Martinez at 1B. On to the 7th frame. 4-4.

[Joseph Zarr]

Montgomery wins again. They plate on in the bottom of the 8th - a double and a ground out RBI. 3-2 over the Lookouts for the 2-0 series lead. Shuckers have to win tonight to stay 0.5 GB.

[Joseph Zarr]

Chourio is now 1-for-8 in this early Birmingham series. He strikes out in four pitches on a slider high and just inside. He is quiet. On to the bottom of the 7th. 

[Joseph Zarr]

Runners on 1st and 2nd. Nobody out. The Shuckers saw 3B Ethan Murray come to the dish. He failed to lay down two attempts at a sac bunt (both popped up well into 1B territory) and then he hits a weak pop out to shallow CF. Not a good AB by Murray whatsoever. Lamar Sparks follows by hitting a decent chopper deep in the 3B hole and he manages to leg it out. Bases juiced. One down. BIG moment for Isaac Collins who hits a hard chopper over 3B. Collins deliver AGAIN! TWO RUNS cross as he jumps on the first pitch. The young man continues to crush. 6-4 Shuckers. 

 

Sleepy Jackson Chourio looks to wake up. He swings and whiffs on a high heater behind by a good foot. 0-1. He swings and whiffs on an outside off-speed pitch. 0-2. He barely misses squeezing an off-speed groundball off the 3B bag for more runs. Whew that was close. Still 0-2. With the runners moving, Chourio grounds out to SS. He is now 1-for-9 in this series and he hasn't hit anything all that well. One of those mini-ruts for the uber-talented young CF'er.

[Joseph Zarr]

Valerio on to pinch hit he takes an 0-1 count on a high heater and pops out to shallow 1B territory. Not the pitch he was looking for and the result was indicative of swinging at that pitch. He strands runners and key insurance runners on 2nd and 3rd base. The Shuckers will look to hold the 6-4 lead as we likely will see Closer RHP Cam Robinson to close this out. 

[Joseph Zarr]

RHP Cam Robinson gets two hard hit fly outs (one to RF and one to deep CF - just shy of the warning track) and he gets a come backer. It's a 1-2-3 inning. Shuckers win 6-4. 

In a hilarious moment, Robinson dirted an 0-2 heater about 6 feet before home plate and as the ball jumped over Quero and the umpire you could hear manager Mike Guerrero scream to Quero from the dugout steps: "You gotta catch that!" 

😅

The Shuckers hold serve. They have won 9 games in a row while the BIscuits have won 6 in a row. Shuckers trail by 0.5 G. What a race to the finish.

[BrewerFan]

13 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Ashby has looked alarmingly bad today...He's topped out at 87 mph and his stuff just looks totally lifeless. Seems his FB is 87. CH is low 80's. SL is upper 70's. CB is lower 70's. That's like 6-10+ mph down on these pitches.

I'll reiterate, shut him down. The kid had shoulder surgery this year. How big of a role can he possibly play coming back in Sept?

Give him until next year to regain his strength in that left shoulder... he's supposed to be a core piece of the post-Burnes/Woodruff era. He was hitting 99 last year(rarely, but he had exceptional velo is the point). Unless he can get that back, shut him down.

[SF70]

3 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

I'll reiterate, shut him down. The kid had shoulder surgery this year. How big of a role can he possibly play coming back in Sept?

Give him until next year to regain his strength in that left shoulder... he's supposed to be a core piece of the post-Burnes/Woodruff era. He was hitting 99 last year(rarely, but he had exceptional velo is the point). Unless he can get that back, shut him down.

To go from 92 in his first outing to 87 in his second is beyond concerning. They have to shut him down before he re-injures/injures his arm with his admittedly bad mechanics. 

This year doesn’t matter, next year does.

[Joseph Zarr]

We have to consider the nature of recovery from labral tears/surgery to address pathologies. The thing Ashby does have going for him, if you look into the literature, is he didn't tear his rotator cuff. Is it a glowing quality? No. Labral recoveries are anything but certain. As literature has advanced, it would appear a return to form happens in 60-80% of the players who experienc such issues - with 20% or so never playing again.

However, If you watch his recent outings, as I have, it's pretty clear he currently is working through restricted movement in his throwing shoulder and, well, this is to be completely expected given what he has endured this past year plus. By my eyes, he is working through things in a step-by-step manner - ie, he isn't opening up and why would he after a labrum surgery? That would likely lead to catastrophic effects. Just watch the two clips below - above from a 12 K outing versus the Cubs before the shoulder injury and below from yesterday's outing. It is quite clear to my eyes he is essentially getting mound work and likely working on a few things related to stacking. He isn't remotely close to a full opening of his release plane and his patented full body follow through. He's upright. And, honestly, almost casual. Like he's relearning how he pitches - step-by-step.

I personally think this is going to take at least two years to return to real semblance of his former self. But, that's just me, perhaps. I hope they take it really slow. It's impractical to expect him to contribute in 2023 to anything other than his recovery process.

[TURBO]

On 9/6/2023 at 4:03 PM, Joseph Zarr said:

Boy that is a sparse attendance for the matinee. Yikes.

No chance for play-offs, school has started, 100% chance of rain...

Hey, I was there!  lol

[wiguy94]

21 hours ago, Joseph Zarr said:

We have to consider the nature of recovery from labral tears/surgery to address pathologies. The thing Ashby does have going for him, if you look into the literature, is he didn't tear his rotator cuff. Is it a glowing quality? No. Labral recoveries are anything but certain. As literature has advanced, it would appear a return to form happens in 60-80% of the players who experienc such issues - with 20% or so never playing again.

However, If you watch his recent outings, as I have, it's pretty clear he currently is working through restricted movement in his throwing shoulder and, well, this is to be completely expected given what he has endured this past year plus. By my eyes, he is working through things in a step-by-step manner - ie, he isn't opening up and why would he after a labrum surgery? That would likely lead to catastrophic effects. Just watch the two clips below - above from a 12 K outing versus the Cubs before the shoulder injury and below from yesterday's outing. It is quite clear to my eyes he is essentially getting mound work and likely working on a few things related to stacking. He isn't remotely close to a full opening of his release plane and his patented full body follow through. He's upright. And, honestly, almost casual. Like he's relearning how he pitches - step-by-step.

I personally think this is going to take at least two years to return to real semblance of his former self. But, that's just me, perhaps. I hope they take it really slow. It's impractical to expect him to contribute in 2023 to anything other than his recovery process.

I don’t care what the reasoning is, I just better not see him pitching in Biloxi next week when they are in the heat of a playoff race because how he pitched on Wednesday would be absolutely lit up pitching in AA.

[Joseph Zarr]

5 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

I don’t care what the reasoning is, I just better not see him pitching in Biloxi next week when they are in the heat of a playoff race because how he pitched on Wednesday would be absolutely lit up pitching in AA.

I certainly don't disagree with you there. Man, that'd be a reallllllly odd decision. I would have to think they are going to send him to Arizona. They have a strength camp upcoming etc. He can simply work on mechanics and motion and slowly opening up the arm...in rehab terms. 

[wiguy94]

19 minutes ago, Joseph Zarr said:

I certainly don't disagree with you there. Man, that'd be a reallllllly odd decision. I would have to think they are going to send him to Arizona. They have a strength camp upcoming etc. He can simply work on mechanics and motion and slowly opening up the arm...in rehab terms. 

Hogg and McCalvy said the plan was for Ashby to go to Biloxi next week, so I guess we will see.  

[Joseph Zarr]

53 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Hogg and McCalvy said the plan was for Ashby to go to Biloxi next week, so I guess we will see.  

Yikes. Hopefully, the Brewers know something we don't. Hopefully the drop in Velo was indeed intentional. He didn't look anywhere close to ready to open up. 

Geee, it sure would have been real nice if a single Wisconsin Sports Media member, you know, showed up during his pre-game availability  for his second outing! In the post-game pod Chris Moehring mentioned not a single member was there to ask him anything. This is actually a pretty big storyline for the Brewers - near-term but long-term even more so. That was a big fail.

[Ro Mueller]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

Hogg and McCalvy said the plan was for Ashby to go to Biloxi next week, so I guess we will see.  

If Ashby is truly healthy, and if they want him to face live hitting, then he might as well come up to Nashville. Sure, he'd likely get lit up, but he'd only be displacing like 1-2 innings of work for a slightly older player like Boushley, Alexander, Abad, Claudio or Teheran...