Live From Greensboro: Outfield Impresses In Near Come From Behind Win

The starting outfield picked up a total of nine hits on the night, and nearly completed a walk-off victory in the bottom of the ninth.

Day two in Greensboro saw an offensive explosion from both teams, with the outfield leading the way for the Grasshoppers.

Hudson Head

The outfielder acquired in the Joe Musgrove trade is a very toolsy player, as you can easily see watching him live. He can hit the ball hard, and moves around the bases very well.

He’s a player I’ve always been a little higher on than others, and Friday night he showed some flashes as to why.

Two of his three hits went the other way, as well as the ball that Wyatt Langford had to jump at the wall (doesn’t look like it was going over) to get to. He came up big in the ninth, reaching base to continue the rally in which the Grasshoppers nearly came back.

Jase Bowen

He had another strong game, hitting the ball hard, picking up a couple of hits while also walking. Bowen has really impressed me with the way he’s hit the ball, and it’s easy to see why he’s perhaps the best hitter in the South Atlantic League right now.

Tres Gonzalez

Tres Gonzalez might actually just be the outfield version of Tsung-Che Cheng, with the hit tool throughly impressing me in the first two games.

Neither of them have the traditional power you’d look from a hitter, but he the ability to hit the ball hard to the gaps. He’s hit the ball really hard over the first two games, including a home run in the game on Wednesday.

They are kind of built the same way, at least when it comes to their skillset. Really good hit tools, strong defenders and both have questions about how much they will hit for power in the next level.

If there is a player who has maybe put themselves to move up when I work on my prospect list this offseason, it’s been Gonzalez so far.

Po-Yu Chen

The righty struggled out the gate, and was hit hard and often throughout his start. He allowed a very hard hit fly ball, a home run, double and base hit among the first four batters he faced in the game.

He started to locate the fastball and curve in the second inning, picking up a strikeout with each. Unfortunately there was just too much hard hit balls through his three innings of work, eventually allowing another home run.

It seemed like the hitters got the timing on the curve, and did a good job sitting back on the pitch and driving it into play.

His fastball/sinker was anywhere between 87 and 93, sitting about 90-91 through his start.

Eddy Yean

Acquired in the Josh Bell trade, Yean has really just transformed into a bullpen arm in High-A, although this had to be one of his better outings of the season. He got up to 97 mph with his fastball, sitting 95-96 and threw the pitch for strikes and eventually mixing into the slider that got him a couple of outs.

Julian Bosnic

The lefty was the only Greensboro pitcher to get Wyatt Langford out, which is something on its own for how he played. He doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but the big looping curveballs created a lot of excitement from the crowd.

He topped out at 91, and didn’t have great shape/metrics during his time in Bradenton, but really hugged the corners to help lead to his success on Friday.

Valentin Linarez

I wrote about his shift to the bullpen the other week, and got to see him live. One of the things that is fun about being at the game, is that I’m getting consistent radar readings for a lot of the guys that' have been in Greensboro all season.

The shift to the bullpen has Linarez throwing 97 mph, which he did twice, both for swing and miss strike threes. His slider that was thrown at 85 got the other out in between.

He was a guy I was interested in going into the season as a starter, and while it’s easy to get burned by relievers in A-Ball, the stuff jumps off the page.

Next Up

Saturday will be the last game I will be at, since the Sunday game is at 6:30 pm ET, not trying to travel after that.

According to the MiLB app, Bubba Chandler is still the scheduled start. He was placed on the Development List this past Sunday, which seemed like a paper move-type deal to give him some rest and not have him pitch twice in the same week.

If he should pitch, that could potentially put him, Termarr Johnson and Wyatt Langford all in the same game, plenty of top prospects to go around.