I was nosing around for some notes on Mark Mulder’s rehab start in Springfield. All I found was Kary Booher’s writeup where he notes that Mulder threw 45 of 75 pitches for strikes. While that’s all well and good, until I hear that Mulder his consistently sitting in the 88-89mph range, I’m going to believe he’s D.O.A.
3-for-1 in the system tonight with Quad Cities getting the crap kicked out of them. Seems like Palm Beach and Memphis are the good teams this year.
- Colby Rasmus was 2-for-4. It’s a start. . .
- David Freese was 2-for-3 with a pair of walks and a double.
- Amaury Marti had a double and was one whiff away from the golden sombrero.
- Rough night for Jarrett Hoffpauir who went 0-for-4 with an intentional walk and an error. The power level is down a little bit from last year. I’d like to see him put up an ISO around 120 to be confident that he’ll at least have enough power to keep MLB pitchers honest. The walk rate is down a touch too and truthfully he needs to keep that number high (around 12) to stick a good OBP up there. He’s currently hitting .305/.377/.390 this season.
- Nice night for the Hawk. He goes 6 strong innings allowing just 2 hits and 2 walks against 5 Ks.
- Jason Motte picks up a blown save and a win as he goes 1 inning and strikes out 3. Unfortunately, he allowed 2 runs on a homer.
- Chris Perez picks up the save with a perfect 1K inning.
- Brendan Ryan goes 2-for-4 with a double and gets plunked by the opposition.
- Mark Hamilton and Allen Craig both go 2-for-4. Craig picks up a double.
- Jon Jay was the offensive story of the night going 4-for-4 with a triple and a home run. Frankly, he needed an offensive outing like this.
- Mulder went 6 innings allowing 3 hits, 3 walks and 1 K. Couple things: 1) the Booher article at the top of today’s post notes that Mulder got some help from outfielders (including Shane Robinson stealing a HR from the opposition). 2) We wouldn’t expect the command to be back yet so the walks aren’t a huge deal — yet. 3) The strikeouts, however, are. Even if he’s wild, you’d hope Mulder would be getting these younger inexperienced hitters to chase and strikeout a few more. It doesn’t look like he’s fooling even AA players; what are major leaguers gonna do.
- Cory Rauschenberger got touched up for 3 runs in 3 innings. Not his best showing.
- Tyler Henley and Isaias Garcia went 3-for-4.
- Steven Hill was 1-for-4 with a double and a walk. I haven’t noticed him anywhere but LF this season although we’ve seem him play some catcher and 1B in the past.
- Brandon Buckman was 3-for-4 with a double and 4 RBI. He’s lucky he hit well tonight because he had 3 fielding errors. He’s considered a good defensive first baseman so this is something of an off night for him.
- Kyle Sadlowski continues to outperform my expectations. He went 4 innings allowing 6 hits and 4 ER but walked no one and struck out 5. (I had very low expectations for him and Mura in the rotation.)
- Jess Todd was stellar again. He picks up the win with 3.2 IP and 3 hits for 1 unearned run against 5Ks.
- CF Adron Chambers was 2-for-4 with a double, a stolen base and a walk.
- Pete Kozma continues to hit going 2-for-5. He also stole a base. (He was playing SS tonight so I can’t carp about that but he did commit an error.)
- Andrew Brown was 2-for-4 with a HR.
- Earth meet Nick Additon. Additon meet Earth. Additon lasted just 2.2 innings allowing 8 hits and 7 runs (4 earned). He walked 3 and struck out 2 but much of the damage (5 runs) came on 2 HRs.
- Brian Broderick was also touched up for 5 runs in 3 innings. Not a good night for QC pitching.
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FWIW, Bernie reports Mulder was in the 87-90 range today… this from a “guy who was there and reported back” to him.
http://www.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=5585852&highlight=#5585852
according to Bernie Miklasz, he said that somebody reported back from the game that Mulder was consistently hitting 87-90 mph. I’m also concerned that he’s not striking these guys out at a higher rate, but the velocity is something to be optimistic about.
I like Additon’s curveball. I think he telegraphed his change a couple of times by slowing down his arm, but I’m no scout.
I was at the game. Mulder was 83-87 early more on the low end. He also had problems the first two innings getting his breaking ball to do anything. The last inning he was 78-83. Tulsa hit the ball real hard against him but the all three outfielders made several nice plays to prevent some hits and runs. Also a lot of balls were hit hard right at people.
Wow! That’s quite a disparity between Bernie’s “guy” and Jeffery’s on-the-scene reportage. Hummel has a column this morning that says he was “often between 87 and 90″. Hmmm.
What to believe?
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/8DC4DD677389F69F86257432001A2F01?OpenDocument
no offense to Jeffery but there a several eye witness accounts from posters at Bernie’s forum that also said he was anywhere from 87-90 most of the night.
About Bernie
A.) He doesn’t sugar coat things, if Mulder was throwing slow, he’d call it out.
B.) He isn’t one to write false information
I’m sorry, but i’m taking Bernie’s word for it.
I’m with the in-between crowd on Mulder - glad no runs were given up and his velocity slightly increased; but despite no runs given up, he still seems quite a few starts away from being considered MLB-ready.
On the positive side for Springfield, despite the offense’s early struggles, Anderson, Martinez, and Hamilton are each in the top 12 of the Texas League in RBIs and TBs.
With Craig heating up and Jay yet to achieve consistency, I still think this team will score a lot more runs than they have been…
Also, how long does Anderson have to torch AA pitching to warrant a move to AAA? The Johnsons stats are hideous….
i think if anderson is still mashing in a couple of weeks he could be on his way to memphis, but then the question becomes who catches for springfield?
The Cardinals are going to have an interesting situation on their hands, because Anderson really isn’t that far away from being MLB ready. Catchers who hit like he does are really valuable, regardless of their defense. If he can continue to show this kind of power, he’s going to really increase his trade value.
Not to mention that the Cardinals are going to have quite a few trading chips in pitchers and outfielders. This may get quite interesting by the trade deadline.
No offense taken. I did not see every pitch on the radar screen, but I didn’t miss many. That was one of the things I really wanted to observe. I never did see 90. I will admit I saw 89 a couple of times but most of his pitches were in the 84-87 range until the 6th when they went lower. He did look better in the 3rd, 4th and 5th inning. He is scheduled to pitch Friday night against Tulsa again according to his interview after the game. I hope to get down there to watch him again. Just a 3 hour drive.
Bernie’s guys could have been someone with a gun. Speed matters a little, but the general impression I get is that he wasn’t fooling anybody.
Whoa, if Mulder is pitching Friday I will be there its Springfield’s first game here in Tulsa. What a way to kick it off.
I spoke to someone that was doing the gun last night at the game and they said mulder was 86-88 in the first few innings and around 84 towards the latter innings. I am not sure what he topped out at but I can find out.
Wouldn’t Brandon Yarbrough naturally take over starting duties?
Regarding Mulder, I think we need to remember that these are more than just rehab starts, these are his spring starts too. At this stage I wouldn’t expect his velocity to hold up through 6 innings. Isn’t this just his second start? Most pitchers in spring only go 4 or 5 at that time.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from excited with his results, so far. I’d like to see him missing more bats for example. But I’m trying to keep my expectations under control for the moment.
Changing directions radically … Did anyone note the Antonio DeJesus played CF for Palm Beach last night, and Thomas Pham didn’t make an appearance? Might Pham have been sent back to extended spring training? Or did someone else disappear from the PB roster? Anyone know?
Pham is hurt form the collision in the Mulder game.
[...] Daily Prospect Report 4/20/08 I was nosing around for some notes on Mark Mulder’s rehab start in Springfield. All I found was Kary [...] [...]
My bad it was Daryl Jones that went on the DL.