Live Report: Carlson Reed carries no-hitter into seventh, Jimenez as a reliever, Linarez fastball
Live Report: Carlson Reed carries no-hitter into seventh, Jimenez as a reliever, Linarez fastball
GREENSBORO—Wednesday was game two of five I would be live at First National Bank Field to see the Grasshoppers face the Bowling Green Hot Rods.
For the second straight game, Omar Alfonzo picked up multiple hits, one of which was a home run. Shawn Ross homered to give the Grasshoppers the lead and eventually the win.
Carlson Reed took a perfect game into the seventh inning before giving up a home run. He was pulled afterwards, giving way to Carlos Jimenez, with Valentin Linarez pitching the ninth and getting the save.
These reports are solely on pitchers again but I will start on some hitters the more video I get of them.
Carlson Reed
I saw Reed pitch in Bradenton back in May. He pitched well, allowing two runs on three hits and three walks while striking out seven in five innings.
You could see how good the slider could be, but he struggled with controlling the fastball, leading to the three walks.
He’s been a different pitcher of late, and I was excited to see his progress in the couple of months since I last saw him in person.
This is just his called strikes and whiffs from Wednesday night (most of them, I missed some because people walking in the shot).
Reed picked up 14 whiffs on the night, six of which came with the fastball. He got as high as 94 mph with it but generally sat around the 91-92 range. It does look like he was throwing two different fastballs. The 91-92 he used towards the bottom of the zone and dialed it up a little more.
A Baseball America write-up supports that he may be using two fastballs.
The slider is his bread and butter, which was on display in this game. He can throw it for strikes and get opponents to chase out of the zone.
He even mixed in a righty-on-righty change-up for a swing-and-miss, getting the hitter out ahead of the pitch.
There was quite a bit of hard contact early on, which included Mitch Jebb having to make a play at the wall to keep the game scoreless in the first inning.
The biggest question about Reed is whether he’s a starter or reliever at the next level.
This version looked more like a potential major league starter than the previous one I saw in Bradenton. There is still some work to do, but Reed is making progress and doing it at a higher level than before.
The next step is to get more consistent with the fastball because, digging back to a Baseball America article, the velocity was a little higher in a game they were talking about than I saw.
Carlos Jimenez
If you have followed me long enough, you have certainly heard this name before. The stuff is never the question for Jimenez, it’s all about throwing strikes, which he didn’t do the first time I saw him this year.
He walked three and allowed four hits in two innings pitched with Bradenton.
This time, he walked one while striking out another in 1.2 innings pitched out of the bullpen.
His stuff is excellent and hard to hit when he's around the zone. His fastball averaged a tick under 95 mph (94.9), and he mixed in his curveball and change-up.
He snapped in a pretty good curve and got a whiff with the off-speed. It looks like he’s making the full-time transition to the bullpen, which is probably overdue, but there becomes some intrigue there as a reliever.
With the obvious caveat that the bust potential of lower-level relievers is incredibly high.
Valentin Linarez
After seeing him in Greensboro last year, I considered Linarez an ‘under the radar’ prospect this season. He started in Altoona this year, struggled, and was sent back to High-A.
He gets an incredible amount of extension on his pitches, which makes his fastball, which reached 98 mph multiple times, that much harder for hitters to pick up on.
Linarez needed 12 pitches to get through the ninth, getting whiffs on six—all fastballs. He was one pitch short of an immaculate inning and threw 11 fastballs to one slider.
The fastball averaged right under 97 mph (96.7) and hit 98 twice. It’s a very violent delivery where he brings his arm all the way, which does hide the ball well. It ends with a downward jerky motion as he whips his arm through.
Lower-level relievers are tricky, as we see with Linarez. The fastball is good, which keeps him interesting.
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