I drove down to Tacoma this morning almost on a whim to watch Mauricio Robles’ AAA debut. I say “almost” because I did purchase the ticket last night, but I didn’t do so until after I found out Robles was pitching.  Wound up getting a GORGEOUS day for baseball (and not too hot where I was sitting thanks to Cheney Stadiums lovely shaded stands) and a pretty good game.

The Rainiers wound up winning in extra-inning walkoff fashion on a Mike Carp three run blast that cleared the right-field wall with plenty of room to spare.  Taking somewhat away from that great moment was something very scary that occurred in the at-bat immediately preceding Carp’s; David Winfree got hit in the head by a 91 MPH fastball.  He tried to duck down and away from it, but couldn’t get away in time and took the ball off his helmet near the top of the left side of his head.  He went down fast and hard, but sat up right away and was immediately talking to manager Jose Castro and the trainer as they sprinted over to him.  Winfree managed to get back up fairly quickly, maybe thirty seconds after getting hit, and would stay in the game to run the bases.  Whether or not he would have been able to stay in to play right field later wound up being a moot point, as Carp took a belt-high fastball way out to right for the winner.

That Winfree was able to take a ball off the head like that, and then get up and back in the game so quickly, is a real testament to the new style of batting helmets that minor league baseball players have to wear these days.  Yes, they look a little silly (though not near as bad as the first version of them), but the improved protection they offer is far, far superior to the “normal” batting helmets that most Major League players are still wearing.  The difference between the two is like night and day, and I honestly believe that if Winfree was wearing an old-style helmet when he got hit, he wouldn’t have been up nearly as quickly as he was, especially given where he got hit.

Now then, on to the scouting notes, eh?First of all, I have some decent video for a change, courtesy of a Flip Mino I acquired recently.  You’ll have to excuse the slight fuzziness, as the netting behind home played played merry hob with the auto-focus.

Left-hander Mauricio Robles was the focus of my attention this afternoon.  Acquired from the Tigers as part of the Jarrod Washburn trade last year, Robles is not a big man (listed at 5’10″, 205 lbs), but gets his fastball up there in the mid-90s, and has a nice changeup and a decent curve.  He came out hard, with his fastball clocking in at 93-95 MPH with a couple at 96 and 97 in the first.  The changeup was registering around 85, and the one curveball I noticed was at 77.

The Round Rock Express hitters didn’t stand a chance against Robles early.  The first batter of the game got a bloop single over the glove of shortstop Luis Dominguez, but after that it was all Robles.  His command was a little loose, especially on the fastball, but most everything was down, and the hitters had no idea what to do with it.  The fastball had a slight tailing action to Robles’ glove side (meaning away from left-handed batters and into righties) that was keeping batters from making solid contact.  The change was probably Robles’ better pitch, as it looked identical to the fastball coming out of his hand, and he was spotting it almost perfectly.  The curve didn’t make many appearances today, but it did look like a fairly decent pitch when Robles did use it, and he got a couple grounders out of it.

Robles absolutely coasted through the first four frames, striking out six Express batters while only giving up one hit and one walk.  Things absolutely fell to pieces in the fifth, however.  His command was noticeably shakier right out of the gate, and his velocity was down about 3 MPH on all of his pitches.  In fact, his command quickly went from “noticeably shakier” to “completely gone”.  Robles would give up a hit and two walks to load the bases, then walked in a runner.  Then came the inevitable: a fastball stayed up to left fielder Colin DeLome, and he crushed it to right for a grand slam.  Robles would escape the inning without further damage, but he was definitely not the same pitcher in the fifth as he was through the first four.

So what happened?  Robles’ loss of velocity and control really hurt him, and there have been reports that he does tend to fade like that at times as he goes deeper into games.  He’s still just 21, so some strength and duration issues can be expected, especially since he’s a smaller pitcher with harder stuff.  Robles also got a little dinged up getting the put out in a run-down in the fourth inning.  He seemed fine, but the trainer saw something that made him come running out right away, and manager Jose Castro was right on his heels.  That coupled with the extra time for the Rainiers’ offense manufacturing three runs in the bottom of the frame could certainly have effected Robles heading into the fifth.

One bad inning aside, though, Robles had a very strong inning, winding up with eight strikeouts to three walks, plus three hits, three air outs (pop-ups, fly balls, and line drives), and four outs on the ground over five innings.  He threw 106 pitches in total, 68 of which were strikes, though the ratio was certainly much better before the fifth.  Definitely a promising start to Robles’ AAA career.  From here, I mostly want to see if he can build up his endurance a bit and stick in the rotation, because his stuff could let him be quite good there as long as he can maintain through his outings.

I won’t use up a ton of space on first baseman Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley today.  Both were their usual selves, and put in some good at bats.  Ackley went 0-5, but made good contact several times, he just made good contact right at defenders.  Smoak had two hard hit singles, and a jolt in the bottom of the 8th that got the crowd excited before the wind caught it and killed it in center field.

Defensively, Ackley got two chances tonight, both on plays far to his left.  The first was on a slow dribbler deep in the hole between second and first that Ackley decided to slide for, but the ball booted off the heel of his glove.  The official scorer awarded the batter with a hit, presumably because of how far Ackley had to go to get to it, but it easily could have been  an error.  The second play wasn’t quite as far away and had more of a hop to it, so he was able to field it very smoothly and make the throw on the run to get the runner out easily.  Ackley’s adjustment to second is definitely still progressing, but there’s no real sign that he can’t stick there yet.  We just have to be patient with the occasional growing pains.

One other thing: Mike Carp caught my eye a bit today.  As I’ve noted in the past, his swing is leaps and bounds better than it was a year ago, and every time he made contact today it was very sharp contact with a lot of “oompf” behind it.  He hit the game winning bomb in the 10th, which if I had to guess probably came close to 400 feet once it landed in the brush out there.  Carp also drilled an RBI double to deep center in the fourth that had a great chance to go out if not for the wind blowing in, and hitting one out to center in Cheney is no easy feat.  Tiny sample size, sure, but Carp has had days like this several times when I’ve seen him this year, so the signs are encouraging that he can still develop into a useful hitter.

Also, I’ve come to loathe watching Greg Halman from a scouting perspective.  He’ll work one nice at-bat where he takes a couple close pitches and shows good swings, then the next at bat he’ll flail at three straight junk pitches.  He did hit a gorgeous, opposite-field homer to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, but still.  He’s easily the most frustrating player I’ve had the “privilege” of watching.

Next week, I’ll be heading up to Everett to catch the AquaSox.  I’m getting to go as a member of the media again, so that means I’ll be able to watch BP from the field again.  I’ll try to get you guys some video of that, and as always, my notes and thoughts on the players.