By chance Monday night, we noticed that Kyle Drabek was getting the call for the Las Vegas 51s against the Sacramento River Cats.
Given the perpetual fixation on the future among Jays fans these days, we dialed up the game to see what the young pitcher had to offer should he merit a September callup.
It took about 15 minutes to realize that Kyle Drabek probably isn’t getting that call.
Drabek had an OK first inning, giving up a homer to Oakland farmhand Chris Carter.
It seemed at times as though he wasn’t getting calls at the top of the zone, but we can’t remember a pitcher who has excelled by living up there for any amount of time.
By the second frame though, Drabek’s delivery began to unravel, as he looked to be exerting a lot of extra effort throwing across his body. A soft single was followed by a walk, and then a botched 3-6-1 double play in which Adeiny Hechavarria threw high and Drabek hit the ground after reaching to make the catch.
From there on, you wanted to avert your eyes.
Another soft single, then three consecutive walks with Drabek’s delivery becoming increasingly erratic and almost random from pitch-to-pitch.
He uncorked a wild pitch.
His limbs flew about on each delivery like a shaken sock monkey.
The third inning started with a tough play to Hechavarria, who rushed a throw on what would be ruled a single. Once again, Drabek looked frazzled, loading the bases before quadruple-A infielder Wes Timmins (who?) cleared them with one swing of the bat. Escaping the inning was modest achievement.
Drabek’s final line: three innings, eight hits, nine earned runs, four walks, four strikeouts, a wild pitch and two home runs surrendered.
Frankly, Drabek was outpitched by teammate Jason Lane, a first basemen and DH who came in and tossed two shutout innings giving up.
None of this is meant to write off Drabek.
As we noted on our Twitter feed throughout the outing, he may be at the end of his physical rope at this point in the season (though that doesn’t explain his track record of bad outings throughout his time at triple-A).
In the end, we were left wondering if Drabek was just too gassed to maintain a consistent delivery, or if he’d never developed that skill. Moreover, we’d be shocked if the Jays were to call on his services next week after the rosters expand, unless it were to get him more time with the pitching coaches in Toronto.
Too much glove love for Adeiny?
As mentioned above, Hechavarria did not overwhelm us in the way that he has others with his defence (and believe us when we tell you that we were open to be wowed).
The allegedly slick-fielding Cuban made three bad throws and dropped an easy grounder, scuttling what should have been an easy double play.
Granted, this was our first opportunity to watch him on something other than YouTube clips, so you can apply a shiny, yellow “small sample size” warning sticker on this observation. And we’d also note that his reactions off the bat look pretty great, which makes us believe he’ll get to plenty of balls. We just hope he works on setting his feet a bit better on his throws over his full season at triple-A next year.
One last observation on Hechavarria: he plays bigger than his body. He may look small and wiry, but he’s by no means a scrappy, slap-hitter.
Imagine having Otis Nixon taking cuts like Edgar Martinez, and you might have something close to Adeiny.
Twisting roads through the minors
We liked the cut of his jib, and we knew Manny Mayorson’s name rang a bell for us, so we looked him up mid-game. As it turned out, he’d been with the Jays’ system for most of the past 11 years, making his professional debut as a 17-year-old in 2000 with the now-defunct Medicine Hat Blue Jays.
Among Mayorson’s teammates that year was an 18-year-old Dustin McGowan, who scuffled to a 6.48 ERA and 2.04 WHIP.
Along the way, Mayorson made stops in Auburn, Charleston, Dunedin and New Hampshire, before spending a year and change in the Marlins’ system.
He returned to the Jays in 2009, and has played the past two seasons in Vegas. With the ability to play around the infield and an OBP of .362 and .370 over the past two seaons, we wouldn’t mind seeing Mayorson get a shot at cracking the big leagues to play the Mike McCoy role next year. Perhaps that’s overly sentimental, still.
Also taking an odd path through the Jays system is backup catcher Luis Hurtado, who entered the game to give Ryan Budde a break.
The 22-year-old Venezuelan has now caught for low-A Vancouver and Lansing, high-A Dunedin as well as the 51s, but has played a grand total of 12 games across all four levels. Where it gets weird though is that Hurtado played a total of just five games last year (at low-A Auburn), and just 13 games across three levels the previous year.
Is he an emergency option who is brought out only when all other receivers are indisposed?
There must be a story to this.
A quick thought on the big club
To bookend the post, we’d underscore Ricky Romero’s grace under pressure Monday. Though he fell behind 2-0 after two batters, we loved how he continued to pitch aggressively and throw strikes while maintaining his composure.
Though his last few outings have not been as stellar as they were during the previous month, we’ve been impressed by Romero’s ability to hang in through some tough innings and continue to pitch calmly and with purpose.
While his emotions seem to get taken out on his cap and glove, or on the dugout upholstery between innings, his delivery remains solid and steady, even when he doesn’t seem to have his best stuff.
The whole discussion of who is an ace is a little tiresome, but we’re definitely getting accustomed to having Romero’s turn come up when the Blue Jays need a win.
Now if only he could do it against the Red Sox.
