Tue. 9/10 - And Then There Were Two (Regular Season)

[Joseph Zarr]

3-run jack to straightaway CF. Made swinging bunt single. Pratt BB. Burke absolutely torches a breaking ball in a hitters count. 9-4 the Shuckers open back to a five-run lead.

[biedergb]

Burke

he loves the Southern League.  9 HR now. 3 run shot to get him to 30 RBIs in Top of the 9th.  Made with an infield single on a ball that got 10 ft in front of home. The Pratt Walk..

[Joseph Zarr]

Burke is absolutely humming. Wilken and Adams are absolutely searching for their previous pre-injury form. IF these two find their strokes for the playoffs? Look out. Wilken goes down looking at a belt high heater in a 2-2 count. 0-for-4. Adams is 0-for-5 and has not looked good doing it. 

[biedergb]

Watching Wilken has me wonder if he May and early June was a fluke. Outside of late April through his injury in June, he has had a lot of not very good streaks at the plate. Watching Burke and Fischer have be believing that Wilken has been lapped.

[Joseph Zarr]

1 minute ago, biedergb said:

Watching Wilken has me wonder if he May and early June was a fluke. Outside of late April through his injury in June, he has had a lot of not very good streaks at the plate. Watching Burke and Fischer have be believing that Wilken has been lapped.

I wouldn't get too far ahead of yourself here. Wilken is still leading the Southern League in HR balls. He's suffered two absurdly weird injuries the past two years. When he's healthy and right he's shown quite a bit at the Double-A level. They are all different players. We're lucky to have all of them. They offer different things. 

[biedergb]

4 minutes ago, Joseph Zarr said:

I wouldn't get too far ahead of yourself here. Wilken is still leading the Southern League in HR balls. He's suffered two absurdly weird injuries the past two years. When he's healthy and right he's shown quite a bit at the Double-A level. They are all different players. We're lucky to have all of them. They offer different things. 

I hear you. And those injuries are weird and not “injury prone “ type of things  and he is not bad, but shows what the others have done.

‘BUT. You have to play and do so consistently.  And his late April through mid June was phenomenal- I mean he was lapping the field in HRs, so much so that he still leads 😳.  But compared to the full season and consistent hitting from Burke (he had a slump prior to his promotion which I guess is the way to do it right Jesus?), and the start Fischer has, the message is clear to the Wilken/Bitonti duo from ‘23, as ‘24 Burke and ‘25 Fischer are ready to try to be the corner infield duo of the future. Again it’s great to have this depth. If Wilken is for real great, if not then hopefully Fischer will be, or Ebel or even Adams.

[Joseph Zarr]

It's a 2-0 night for the affiliates. McGregor works around a single via fly out, pop out, ground out. 9-4 Shuckers 'W'.

[Joseph Zarr]

1 minute ago, biedergb said:

I hear you. And those injuries are weird and not “injury prone “ type of things  and he is not bad, but shows what the others have done.

‘BUT. You have to play and do so consistently.  And his late April through mid June was phenomenal- I mean he was lapping the field in HRs, so much so that he still leads 😳.  But compared to the full season and consistent hitting from Burke (he had a slump prior to his promotion which I guess is the way to do it right Jesus?), and the start Fischer has, the message is clear to the Wilken/Bitonti duo from ‘23, as ‘24 Burke and ‘25 Fischer are ready to try to be the corner infield duo of the future. Again it’s great to have this depth. If Wilken is for real great, if not then hopefully Fischer will be, or Ebel or even Adams.

Sure. My over-arching point here is we just have to let it play out. Fischer was very intriguing but it was an extremely small sample size. Burke was solid at Wisconsin but I wouldn't call it overly impressive work. He's been phenomenal in Biloxi. Baseball is weird. It will all shake out how it shakes out. 

[brewmann04]

 Urkraine looking like our future 1st baseman 

[Turning2]

Sure wish these games were available on demand on MLBTV. I watched until the middle of the 4th before switching to the Brewer game. Nobody looked good at the plate up to that point.

[Joseph Zarr]

1 hour ago, Turning2 said:

Sure wish these games were available on demand on MLBTV. I watched until the middle of the 4th before switching to the Brewer game. Nobody looked good at the plate up to that point.

They were absolutely overmatched through 4.0 IP. You are not wrong. The change-up had them all sorts of off kilter. Then, well, then a Lara lead-off single and they never looked back.