The final week of the season for Atlanta Braves minor league baseball is under way, and it was a bit of a quiet start for the affiliates. No one had a real stand out day, though a few flashes from Drue Hackenberg in his start for Columbus were impressive. The big news of the day was the promotion of John Gil, who the Braves skipped over High-A to give a week-long glance at higher level pitching.
(61-78) Gwinnett Stripers 1, (77-60) Nashville Sounds 8
- David McCabe, DH: 0-3, .190/.292/.317
- Luke Waddell, SS: 0-3, .279/.378/.354
- Jhancarlos Lara, SP: 4 IP, 3 H, 7 R, 6 ER, 6 BB, 4 K, 6.06 ERA
- Blake Burkhalter, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 3.29 ERA
There have been worse days on the farm, but probably not very many. Gwinnett was fairly
well hopeless at the plate until a spark at the very end, and the results weren’t any better on the pitching side. Jhancarlos Lara has been absolutely horrendous in his past five games as a starter, with 19 runs and 20 walks allowed over an 18 2/3 inning stretch of pitching. The understanding we have is that Lara’s role as a starter is simply an effort to get him more innings, but at some point you do have to question that approach. His control has regressed precipitously and his whiff rates have dropped as well, though the latter issue is far less pronounced. In fairness he hasn’t really had a major run of issues with his release point so it isn’t affecting him mechanically, and the last time he had to adjust to the bullpen he was able to adapt quickly and begin to dominate. This gives reason to hope or believe that there isn’t long-term damage being done here, but it’s still been a disappointing end of season run for the guy who spent nearly two months as the International League’s most dominant reliever.
On the subject of relievers Blake Burkhalter had a fine evening after a rusty first batter. He had trouble controlling anything to the leadoff man and ended up walking him after a long at bat, but that was the last sign of fragility for his inning of work. Burkhalter was doing a terrific job of landing his fastball at the top of the zone for the final three hitters, and his release point was great on Tuesday. For two batters he laid in fastballs that the hitters could do nothing with, striking both out swinging, then to the final batter he was able to run a cutter up under his hands and get a roll-over ground out. Initially Burkhalter struggled in his move to the bullpen, but his velocity has ticked up and he seems to be getting a better feel for locating his fastball and cutter. He hasn’t allowed a run in a month, though he hasn’t been able to miss bats at a high rate with any level of consistency.
Now for the offense. Yikes. Bad. Oof. Gross. Pick a negative word and you could probably apply it here. An eighth inning home run from Matthew Batten was enough to get them on the board, but there was very little to cheer for prior to that moment. David McCabe’s numbers stayed on their downward slide with another rough showing at the plate, though his brief foray into swing-and-miss troubles that dominated the end of August hasn’t been as prevalent so far. I haven’t seen consistent major issues with his swing decisions of late, he’s just not making solid contact with any of the pitches he swings at and has not been hitting the ball consistently hard the way he did in Columbus or at the beginning of his Stripers tenure.
Swing and Misses
Blake Burkhalter – 4
Jhancarlos Lara – 3
Amos Willingham – 2
(56-74) Columbus Clingstones 0, (66-67) Pensacola Blue Wahoos
- John Gil, SS: 0-4, .000/.000/.000
- Patrick Clohisy, CF: 0-4, .257/.314/.364
- Drue Hackenberg, SP: 3.2 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 5 BB, 6 K, 7.01 ERA
Drue Hackenberg’s final line is quite ugly, but he wasn’t all that bad in this game up until the moment he became absolutely terrible. His command was a bit all over the place for most of this outing, but he was able to throw enough strikes to limit damage and was doing a great job of missing bats. That is, until everything fell to pieces in the fourth inning. Only 13 of his 32 pitches in the inning were strikes and he walked three batters, with two of the three runs scored coming on wild pitches. Before that, though, he was a shade of dominant that we really haven’t gotten any sort of consistent glimpse at all season. His velocity isn’t quite up to where it was at the end of last season but it’s ticked up since he came off of the injured list, and early on he was able to have success landing his fastball in the zone and getting ahead of hitters. Off of that he was able to make effective pitches with his curveball, slider, and cut fastball, with probably the best command we’ve seen all season on non-four seam/sinker pitches. It was nowhere near perfection, but still one of the best versions we’ve seen of him this season even if it was just a flash. It’s somewhat hard to see the plan for Hackenberg right now with fitting in the system, given how many pitchers seem to have passed him at this point and his lack of progression with his command. He has to be able to pitch like this with far more consistency and he hasn’t made any moves in that direction, but he may have some ability in the bullpen if he can keep his control under wraps for shortened outings.
John Gil to Columbus. What a surprising and aggressive move, even though I fully expect High-A to be his starting place next season. Gil has been in need of reps against higher level pitching for a good bit of time now, and though the Braves drafting a bunch of older prospects precluded that option this is at least a taste for him of much better pitching. He had a pretty tough challenge facing off against Karson Milbrandt and he looked plenty comfortable at the plate with two particularly impressive eight-pitch at bats. Milbrandt would ultimately get the better of him in their three matchups, though. Gil narrowly missed sneaking a ground inside the third base bag for a leadoff double, and would go down for a strikeout on a fastball. His second at bat he was on the slider and had it timed up well, but missed the barrel and popped it up to the right side. In the third at bat he had another long battle, fouling off some tough two-strike pitches before hitting a solid line drive into left field that the defender was able to track down. He was a bit more in the weeds in his final inning, getting well-and-truly carved up for a quick strikeout, but overall he looked good at the plate and though I don’t expect to see good numbers he is in a position to put up solid at bats without being overwhelmed.
Swing and Misses
Drue Hackenberg – 14
Ryan Bourassa – 10
