a quasi live blog of a tape delay broadcast?

Yes, that’s what I’m going to do. I was going to just post all this stuff together, but I may as well do it as I watch NESN’s tape delay of the all-star game. So, inning by inning.

First Inning

• I knew it must have been an impressive show for Aaron Crow to win the MVP award after pitching the first inning, and it was. He struck out the side and was in complete control of every at-bat. By my rough count, he needed just 15 pitches to do it.
• Eddie Burns touches 92, says Y-D manager Scott Pickler. Slider is his out pitch. His motion is really fluid for a guy that big (6’8″). Burns had surgery before this spring, and is just now getting healthy. I’ve got to think he’ll be a reasonably high draft pick next year.
• Reese Havens is a bigger kid than I realized. You can see why he’s got power. He just crushed a long single off the wall.
• Conor Gillaspie doesn’t use batting gloves, which is awesome. His swing reminds me of Chase Utley.
• Great sliding catch by Charlie Cutler, the starting left-fielder. He’s not really even an outfielder. Twenty games into the season, he had played 15 games at catcher and five in the outfield. He’s playing more in the outfield now, but he’s certainly versatile.

Second Inning

• Robert Stock, who skipped his senior year of high school to enroll at USC, does look pretty young, in terms of upper body size. He’ll grow.
• Aja Barto has an Alex Rios look about him. Maybe it’s the height.
• Mike Colla is a big kid.
• Gordon Beckham just made a solid play at shortstop. I’ve read that his defense could be a question, but he looked fine on that one. And if he keeps hitting, they’ll find a position for him.

Third Inning

• As NESN points out, Wareham last hosted the all-star game in 1999. Players in that game included Garrett Atkins, Chase Utley, Mark Teixeira, David DeJesus and Lance Niekro.
• Jason Castro apparently has a slight arm injury, which is why he didn’t get the start at catcher.
• You can really see that this is a pitchers’ game. They’re only going one inning so they really come out firing. You better swing or you’re falling behind.
• Nick Cassavechia looks like he has a lot of movement on his pitches. Coming from a sidearm angle, he’s got to be tough on righties. He sort of reminds me of Huston Street, though I don’t think he throws as hard as Street.
• Beckham makes another solid play.
• Havens really turned on an inside pitch for a hit-and-run single. He’s looked very good at the plate in two at-bats.
• Prediction: The East scores three runs in the top of the fourth.

Fourth Inning

• I know Christian Friedrich struggled in this game, but his curveball is a nice looking pitch. It’s true 12-to-6 like Barry Zito’s or Rich Hill’s.
• This is a solid broadcast from NESN but a radar gun reading would have been a nice addition.
• Yonder Alonso took the curveball the other way. In the one game I saw Alonso in person, he went the other way twice. That’s got to be a good thing.
• Alonso clearly would have been out on the throw home if Stock had handled it. It took one hop and he almost ended up blocking it.
• Things really unraveled in a short stretch for Friedrich. All of the happenings came on a series of seven pitches, and Friedrich was actually ahead of Raben 0-2 before throwing a wild pitch to let Beckham score. Raben homered on the next pitch.
• As the announcers say, this would have been a much different inning had the West gotten Alonso at home.
• That curveball is nasty. Allan Dykstra just looked real bad striking out on it. Friedrich, I’m sure, wasn’t happy that he struggled a bit on such a big stage, but I think he’ll be fine.
• T.J. Hose, we’ve been informed, has a high 80’s two-seam fastball, a changeup and a curve. Clearly, he’s a guy with a good feel for pitching to have the success he’s had.
• The color commentator, by the way, is Jim Beattie, the former Expos general manager
• Gillaspie flashed some speed on a ground ball to first. They may have called it an error on a bad toss from Alonso to the pitcher covering, but Gillaspie might have beaten it anyway.

Fifth Inning

• Cole Figueroa is definitely a good hitter. His average has dipped lately, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see him finish strong.
• Gillaspie has the arm to play third, I’d say. It should be clear by now that I think Conor Gillaspie is awesome. This opinion will not change, which is one of many reasons I would make a terrible scout. Things like hitting without batting gloves and wearing high socks are crucial in my evaluations.
• Kyle Gibson is certainly in that projectible category. At 6’5″, he’s very lanky and looks like he can definitely add some weight.
• Impressive inning for Matt Couch, who looks like he has real good stuff.
• Blake Tekotte can run, whether it’s on the bases or in the outfield.

Sixth Inning

• Interesting topic brought up by Beattie, who notes that the professional ranks use a baseball with lower seams than the one used in amateur ball. It makes a big difference, I guess, with pitchers suddenly not having breaking balls that are quite as sharp when they make the jump to the pros.
• Jordan Flasher doesn’t look imposing but he got the job done in this game, just as he has all year in the closer’s role for Bourne.
• James Darnell’s home run was an opposite field shot. He’s a guy who’s not hitting for average on the Cape — he has done it in college — but he’s definitely got the power stroke. I would venture a guess that some of his power comes from his legs, which are large.
• Evan Crawford hasn’t shaved all summer. Spectacular.

Seventh Inning

• Jason Castro has great numbers, of course, and he has the look of a big prospect. He’s taller than I thought and he got down the line very quickly on a groundout. I’m not sure if scouts think he projects as a catcher, but if he does, his value will skyrocket.
• With Wade Miley on the mound, it’s interesting to note that he and Friedrich –the league strikeout leaders — are both lefthanders.
• Corey Young has a real sidearm delivery, which is something you usually don’t see in starting pitchers.
• NESN did a quick interview with Cotuit manager Mike Roberts, who made an interesting comment. He said, “This is the best amateur baseball in the world.” And you know what? I never really thought about that, but he’s right. You think of the Cape league as the best college summer league, but in reality, it’s the best amateur league in the country. NCAA baseball could stake claim, certainly, but the talent is much more spread out. On the Cape, it’s all the best college players playing for 10 teams. As for Team USA, it might be the best amateur team in the country, but that’s not a league. The Cape league really is the best.

Eighth Inning

• Chris Hicks, the closer for Wareham, looks a lot like Jonathan Papelbon on the mound. He flashes a 94-mph fastball, too.
• Both of Beckham’s base hits came on the first pitch of the at-bat.
• Kevin Couture strikes out the first two batters he faces. Apparently, Couture has a changeup that can really make hitters look silly.

Ninth Inning

• Luke Burnett is gigantic and it’s easy to see why scouts love him. It’s also hard to imagine how his ERA is 5.03, with his fastball and his imposing presence. But for the season, he’s given up just over a hit an inning, which I guess will do it.
• The infield fly play was definitely a strange one. Bases were loaded on a popup. Infield fly was called. The ball was dropped. Figueroa was thrown out trying to advance to second. Jason Castro scored, but the run was waved off. It was essentially a double play, with the batter and Figueroa making outs. The call makes sense — sort of. When infield fly was called, the batter was automatically out. On infield flies, runners can advance at their own risk. It’s not a dead ball, so Figueroa would have been out at second. The problem, I think, is that there was no tag at second base, and because the batter was out, there was no force. Apparently, though, it is a force on an infield fly, otherwise the run would have counted.
• Ryan Perry is on and looking very good. I should mention that he has been putting up much better numbers of late, after I mentioned that he was a guy whose stats and tools didn’t quite match. The announcers are speculating that his fastball could be up around 98 on this night. He also has a very hard slider, that’s up around 87 to 89. Perry is big, too, listed at 6’4″. When you see a guy like Perry first-hand, it makes the stats vs. tools argument a bit of a moot point. There’s definitely a wow factor. You can’t teach a 98-mph fastball.

Some final thoughts

• Crow was as good as advertised, and I was most impressed with his mindset and confidence. This was his game. That’s a nice attitude for a pitcher to have.
• Some other players who were impressive: Colla, Hicks and Perry.
• The pitching was great in this game. I know some people are saying that pitching is down and using higher batting averages as proof. I don’t think that’s entirely the case. There may not be as much pitching depth, but there are plenty of great pitchers.
• It was good to see Ben Guez and T.J. Hose — two players who started the summer as temps — do well in their all-star appearances. Just getting named to the team should make a difference for the future, and even if it doesn’t, it’s quite an experience for the present.
• The post game interviews with the MVP’s revealed one of the great things about the Cape. Rob Souza asked both Crow and Raben about their playoff chances, and both knew exactly how things were shaking out. In some summer leagues, it’s all about individual development. That’s certainly a component on the Cape, but it’s not everything. Team goals are real, and players clearly buy into them.
  
• Here’s the recap from Baseball America’s Aaron Fitt
• And if you haven’t checked out Russ Chapentier’s Scout’s Honor column, please do. It’s excellent.
  

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