News and Notes; Thoughts on last night’s Peoria Chiefs game

The Cardinals had an off-day yesterday for the second time in five days, but will return to play later tonight. Here are the links from yesterday’s day.

• Heather and Tyler talk about the Cardinals tendency to win baseball games in the latest podcast.
• Red Baron used the Matt Adams pickup to philosophically examine the difference between Mike Matheny and Mike Shildt.
• Heather also looked at how exactly one manages to score from second on an infield single for her Hunt and Peck.

Also, I went down to yesterday’s Peoria Chiefs game to see Nolan Gorman play. He didn’t start, but mysteriously appeared in the 2nd inning, replacing Wood Myer. Here are my quick thoughts on the Chiefs.

• Dennis Ortega does not appear to be a legitimate prospect at the moment. I do not know of his defensive reputation at catcher, but his offense has been all over the map in his short professional career. The 21-year-old with a June birthday is rather big, and he utterly destroyed a baseball last night for his 6th homer in a 3-4 day. He had a 100 wRC+ and a .124 ISO before yesterday and sure seems like has the frame for some good pop.
• Unfortunately, Gorman went 0-4. On all four outs, he seemed to make pretty good contact. He’s had a strikeout problem so far and any day without Ks is a positive. His defense needs work. He couldn’t field a hard hit grounder that was pretty much right at him (it wasn’t called an error, but it probably should have been). His other chance was a swinging bunt that he tried to barehand but couldn’t.
• Nick Dunn sure had a weird day. In his first PA, he grounded into an inning ending double play with the bases loaded. In his second PA, he lined a ball through the first baseman’s legs, again inexplicably called a hit and not an error. Then a pop fly into center saw Dunn for some reason stand at second base. He easily got thrown out for a double play ball. He got two more legitimate hits with runners on after that though and has a really quick turn on the double play ball he made.
• Luken Baker went 2-4 with a strikeout. Baker is quite big. In fact, the umpire did not seem to account for his height when calling his strike zone as quite a few pitches that seemed low were called strikes. He had a chopper over the 3B head and a soft liner that was in on his hands fall over the 2B head.
• Justin Toerner, a 28th rounder this year, appears to have started his year with Peoria 5-5 before finally getting out his 6th time. He got a triple his 8th time up (a legitimate triple, not a poorly fielded one), so he’s now 6-8. He has also played in 10 Palm Beach games with a 134 wRC+ and 50 State College games with a 126 wRC+ so he’s started way better than most 28th rounders do.
• Angel Rondon does appear to possess major league stuff. Fastball topped out at 92, mostly sat around 89. Though given the velocity, he sure got a lot of swing and misses on the fastball. Also possesses what seems to be a decent curve. He struck out 4 to one walk, but left after 3 innings when he gave up two bombs in the 3rd inning.
• Ben Yokley, who relieved Rondon, appears to be in the same situation as Mitch Harris. He got drafted in 2015 and besides the rest of 2015, he hasn’t pitched since then. Since he got drafted out of Air Force, I’m guessing there’s a reason other than injury. Anyway, he does not appear to be good.

Anyway, considered writing a post on this for Thursday, felt this was a better format for my thoughts. Later - Jack Flaherty day for the Cardinals.