Wareham - 2
Last night in Wareham the Bourne Braves took on the Gatemen and prevailed in a come-back effort to give Will Roberts of Virginia his first win of the Summer. Roberts, a projectable (6-5, 210 lbs.) right-handed pitcher from the University of Virgina, had been used exclusively out of the bullpen until last night. Although his fastball has been clocked in the upper 80s out of the 'pen, he sat in the 85-87 range last night and touched 89 with fair life. He features a slider that at times in relief was a swinging-miss type pitch, a curveball with fair spin, and a decent change-up. He used all four pitches well, using the slider and change-up off the fastball while mixing in a few curveballs to keep the Wareham hitters honest. Despite not having electric stuff, he kept hitters back for better part of his six innings (6.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K).
Although you should know his name by now, since this is a blog about prospects I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Bourne's closer from Louisville, Tony Zych. With a two run lead in the ninth inning, Manager Harvey Shapiro brought in the right-handed flamethrower in a fitting way to close out the regular season for the Braves. A single, a bloop single and a an error put him in a tight spot with the bases loaded and no outs, but he breezed through the next two batters by striking them out and then retired the last batter of the game on a pop-out to the third baseman. All season long he's been around 92-96, touching 97 at times with superb life. He doesn't have an ideal arm action but it will play in the bullpen because it's so quick. His tight slider is inconsistent now but it projects to be a plus pitch, and I have little doubt it will get there. In my mind I have to think that he and Stroman (Orleans, Duke) are two of the top closers on the Cape this Summer.
I'll mention one other arm before I get to my two featured players of the game. Erik Miller (6-4, 213 lbs.) of TCU has had a rough season (13.50 ERA, 8 IP) thus far but in the ninth inning he came on in relief and showed the makings of a potential Major League middle reliever. Despite a long arm action, his delivery is solid and what I liked about him is he comes from such a low arm slot. His fastball had nice velocity (90-91) for this point in the year and his slider shows the potential of being a very tough pitch to right-handed batters. He threw just one change-up last night and right now I see it being a third pitch that he could mix in to left-handed batters when he needs to show them a different look.
Now, here are two players who stood out to me as interesting prospects...
Zach Wilson (6-1, 195), a sophomore from Arizona State (although he is listed as a 1B/3B, he played in LF last night), is clearly the Gatemen's best hitter right now (Springer and Dickerson would have had something to say about that before they left for Team USA). He's a nice athlete and although he gets fair reads on balls, he's below average defensively with a well below average arm (which may force him to stay on the dirt at 1B). That is almost irrelevant though because of his bat. There's definitely power in there (5 HRs this Summer), but I especially like his balanced approach in the box. More often than not he'll swing at the right pitches to swing at and he reads spin out of the hand well. He has the hands to react to fastballs and he generally will not expand the zone, although I think he presses at times. For example, late in the game he swung through a high curveball because he lost his swing plane, most likely trying to jack HR number six. Those are just details though and I have to think that he'll be in a Major League line-up one day, given his natural tools.
The other player I'd like to mention here is Max Muncy (6-0, 195), a freshman 1B from Baylor. He was a catcher coming out of high school and there were concerns about his ability to stay there, but I think he has made the transition to 1B quite well. He committed an error last night on a ball that just stayed down on him but during infield-outfield he looked comfortable with the glove. He moves pretty well and I wonder if he could make the move to either 2B or 3B because I wonder about his height at 1B. Regardless, his ability to hit is his strongest tool. The first time I saw him in BP I though he was too long but after watching him against live pitching, my opinion certainly shifted. Much like Wilson, he shows nice balance and he sees spin well. I think he knows his zone and he doesn't really swing outside of it too often. Even though he's just a freshman, I thought he had a very mature approach and I think that makes his swing play up. With the two of these guys hitting back-to-back in the line-up, they give Wareham a good chance to squeak out two wins against the Braves this weekend in the first round of the play-offs.
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