Morning Rundown: AFL Opening Day, Jase Bowen two hits, site update
It was Opening Day for the Arizona Fall League
The Arizona Fall League kicked off its 30th season on Monday, with the Salt River Rafters winning their first game 3-1 against the Glendale Desert Dogs.
Salt River of course is the team where the prospects from the Pirates organization will be playing this fall.
Jackson Jobe, one of the best pitching prospects in the game, started and threw four shutout innings, allowing two walks and two hits while striking out four.
He got up to 98.3 mph on his fastball, and picked up nine whiffs on 24 swings. His slider averaged over 3,000 rpm of spin on it.
Caleb Roberts (Arizona) picked up a pair of hits, including a RBI single to open up the scoring. Ivan Melendez walked with the bases loaded to drive in another run, with the final scoring after Jase Bowen reached on an error.
Bowen, Brannigan play
A total of eight players from the Pirates organization are playing for Salt River, but only Bowen and Jack Brannigan got into the game on Monday.
Brannigan struggled, going 0-4 with three strikeouts on the night. Bowen flew out in his first at-bat, but then doubled and singled in his next two at-bats. He and Roberts were the only two players on either side to pick up multiple-hits on the night.
Quick site update
Since we are officially in the offseason, I’ve been debating on how best to go about things.
We will still be rolling out daily features around noon everyday, and that will be the case throughout the offseason. I’ll be rolling out two breakdown/scouting articles per week, the first of which will be on Tuesdays. Most of the time the second will be Fridays, but that can change based on a few other things I have planned.
Regardless, two breakdowns per week, both of which will fall under the premium content.
As far as the Morning Rundown, that will definitely continue throughout the AFL as we have games to update. I have a few ideas on what I’m going to do once we hit November and the thick of the offseason gets going, but there is still time before we cross that bridge.
We won’t disappear, and you will always have at least one new article to read on a daily basis here.
As always, thanks for all the support and making Bucs on Decks a success so far. We have so much planned for the offseason, and going into next year.
Jobe is going to be a real stud in the next year or two imo.
Also, excited to see what the offseason iteration of BoD brings AM!
DUJ and De Jong have elected free agency. Oh dear.