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Friday, April 6, 2007

Clippard’s AAA Debut

Opening Night Review:

Tyler Clippard was solid in his AAA debut last night. He had a little trouble locating the fastball, but could go to the curve and the change for outs whenever he got into a jam. While his fastball isn’t particularly fast, he does seem to get a good deal of movement on it. Some of that is unintended as it sails on him from time to time. His command of his secondary pitches appears to be superior to his fastball command, which could explain some of the “Clippard pitches backwards” stuff that’s heard from time to time.

Eric Duncan looked ok at the plate. He had a couple of poor appearances against a good pitcher, Hayden Penn, but also knocked a looooong opposite field double off the wall. Defensively, he looked much improved from when I saw him last year. His actions around the bag appeared smoother and more confident, which was my primary point of concern with his defensive game.

Alberto Gonzalez was up hacking and did not last long enough in any of his Abs to take note of anything other than the fact that he likes to swing. In the field he didn’t do anything noteworthy.

Around The Minors:

-Chase Wright pitched a phenomenal game for Trenton. He went 7 and struck out 9 while giving up 3 hits and 0 walks. Wright was pretty impressive in spring training, despite some control problems. He’s fairly old to be considered a big time prospect, but he might be Ron Villone, we’ll see.

-Jose Tabata started his season off right by singling and immediately stealing a base.

-Tim Norton also got started correctly by tossing 5 innings of 1 hit shutout baseball. He also took the time to strike out 5 while just walking 1. Despite concerns about his secondary pitches, I doubt Norton will be long for Charleston.

Spotlight On:

-Scranton is once again the affiliate to watch as Phil Hughes makes his 2007 debut.