On Saturday March 31st, we saw Weatherford College play Ranger College
Blaine Halencak was the starting sophomore pitcher for Ranger. He showcased a not very impressive fastball (he doesn't throw very hard at all), and he threw mostly fastballs early. The short pitcher also had a breaking ball that was outside to lefties and was nice at times, but it he did hang it for a home run (the next at-bat was a 4 pitch walk on all fastballs). He also threw a lot of what looked like a change-up. He missed over the plate a couple of times in the 2nd, and there was lots of hard contact being made off of him even on pitches out of the zone. There was a home run on a breaking ball in the dirt and he gave up lots of fly-balls. He didn't have excellent control overall, with a handful of 58 footers. He is going to have to live away with his fastball, something I thought he did pretty well to both left handers and right handers.
Marcos Dominiquez was taller and kind of lanky. He is from the Dominican Republic and was throwing harder than Halencak, possibly at 90-91 MPH. He brings his arm way behind his back and head. He had one good outside low fastball for a strikeout, and it was awesome when it is up and in. He also had a good hammer curve, that he can throw both for strikes and in the dirt. The pitch sometimes stayed in the middle of the plate. He does seem to lack swing and miss stuff, and had 4 at-bats in a row ended with reasonably hard contact. He seems to have good command of his pitches even though a couple of curves slipped out of his hand. He got absolutely no help from his defense.
Roberto Sanchez Rosa is a big right handed pitcher with okay velocity and a pedestrian breaking pitch. He was giving up lots of hard contact.
Ben Sollows is a lefty who is probably 6-1 or 6-2. He has a delivery that looks easy but he was grunting with every pitch. He was not throwing real hard, and had low fastballs with a breaking pitch he left up. He wasn't throwing a lot of strikes in his 1 inning.
Kody Peacock is a freshman big sidearming righty. As expected, he doesn't throw hard, but they weren't really meatballs either. He was having major control issues, either walking or hitting all 3 hitters he faced. He ended up leaving with injury. He didn't have much plate to plate movement at all, which is strange for a sidearmer. The movement was more downward and most everything is inside to righties and outside to lefties.
Justin Bigham was another right hander that Ranger brought out of the bullpen. He had an over the top delivery, with a reasonably hard fastball. He also threw a lot of unimpressive breaking balls, and had problems throwing strikes. The ball wasn't going where he wants to and he gave up 3 fly-balls.
For Ranger's lineup, Dustin Palmore batted leadoff. He runs okay but is not fast. The short left-fielder made some solid contact the other way. He has a .438 OBP at this point in the season. Kevin Carrasquillo is a freshman who played at second base. He is small, but made some good contact, including a nice liner on a fastball down the middle. He is not a bad runner as far as speed, but isn't a smart one. Defensively, he had problems with a hard hit ball his way. Lito Roman is the small 3rd baseman. He wasn't much of a runner, and lost a pop fly he should have caught. Offensively, he chased two breaking balls in a row, but hit a home run on a hanging breaking pitch later on. Justin Dossey is a good size listed right fielder who we saw play left field. He had some big whiffs on breaking balls, but also hit a deep fly-ball. He made a nice diving catch, even though he doesn't run very fast (it is worth noting that that he missed a play that was almost exactly the same). Andrew Williamson is a small center-fielder who was not getting good jumps out in the field. He runs really well though. He chased some awful breaking balls, but did manage to walk. Alomar Guzman played right field and showed off a really good arm. The listed utility player has good size but not a good swing on breaking balls. He did hit a hard liner right at the first baseman. Juan Carlos Parades has a nice swing with decent size and plays what looks like a quality (not great) shortstop. He runs well and is a real athlete (he skipped one throw to first so maybe there is a problem with his arm). With the bat he had a long foul ball that was almost a homer. The most amazing thing about it was that it was a breaking ball almost in the dirt. Here is some video of him batting against Justin Garcia:
Luis Del Rio was the starting catcher in the first game, and he got under the first pitch he saw. He is not a good runner and doesn't have an impressive arm. Josiah Candelaria played catcher in the second game and he is smaller than Del Rio. He runs well for a catcher but there is nothing special about his arm. Hector Corona started at 1st base, and he was really bad in the field. He has kind of a weird build and had some problems catching up with the fastball early on. He also chased breaking balls and struck out the first two times he was up. He has legit power though, with a long homer in the game, he just swings and misses too much (he did walk though). Kyle Kulczyk is a lefty hitter who DH'ed (he is listed as a first baseman) and made some solid contact. He runs pretty well, but he had some issues with the breaking ball. He pulled a ground-ball on a long at-bat where he got a good pitch to hit.
For Weatherford, we saw the same starter I had seen the weekend before, Cameron Cox. Cox didn't start well, with the fastball staying in the middle of the plate too much, and he was hit hard by the first 3 batters. He got out of the inning without a run, and was very lucky. He had some nasty breaking balls both in and outside of the zone. He had better fastball command in the 2nd and got a strikeout, and 2 ground-balls. The command left him again in the 3rd and he gave up a line drive, 2 fly-balls, and a ground-ball. He was throwing nearly exclusively fastballs, and for too many strikes. He really got better as the game went along, in the 5th he had good command of his breaking stuff and his fastball. When he is like that he is just deadly. The 4th is when he really started throwing more breaking balls, but didn't have a feel for it. It did get better as the inning went along and everything was a strikeout or on the ground that inning. He had a very good K/BB ratio for the game, but he had an awful hanger for a homer in the 6th inning.
Justin Garcia pitched in relief, and we had seen him before too. The ball was staying in the middle of the plate and his 2 seamer had less movement on it. His breaking ball still looked good though. He gave up a line drive hit, a ground-ball hit, a bizarre intentional walk, another line drive hit (for a double), a fly-ball to center-field, and a ground-ball to shortstop.
Daniel Milliman also pitched a gain, and he got a 1 pitch ground-ball to Paredas to start the game. He did give up a lead-off walk in the 2nd, but made some very nice defensive plays. He started the game with a bunch of hard fastballs and used a nice breaking ball to get 3 strikeouts. His high fastballs were getting fouled off, and his low ones were turning into ground-outs. He gave up lots of fouls, and hung a breaking ball for a homer.
For Weatherford's lineup (see the previous post on Weatherford for a more in depth look at both the pitchers and the lineup), Colton Hall played center field and showed off a nice arm. Even though it looked like he was having problems with pitch recognition, he pulled a breaking pitch for a homer, and also made nice contact on a low breaking ball way out of the zone. Tyler Ervine had some contact problems but when he made contact it was usually hard Collin Zabasky had a nice other way hit an at-bat where he looked mostly bad (as he looks in the majority of his at-bats). Erik Garcia looks like he has a broken finger or something with a big wrap on his hand. He had some problems throwing but he still threw someone out. He hit a lot of balls hard, and hit another homer on a breaking ball. Tyler Cotton played left-field, and had a long at-bat where he got jammed for a ground-ball. He also grounded into a double play and hit another ground-ball. He is listed as exclusively a pitcher. Connor VanDaveer looked awful on a 3 pitch strikeout where he chased a breaking pitch. He did make a nice defensive play though. Cody Semier hit a ground-ball to pitcher and hit a line drive to center.
Thanks to Rachel for taking the video
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