MVN - Most Valuable Network

No hits: Franklin Morales unhittable at AAA

The good news: Former Rockie Franklin Morales was literally unhittable in his first start for Colorado Springs today.  Morales and three relievers combined to no-hit Albuquerque in a 5-1 win.

The bad: Well, there’s a reason why Frankie still allowed a run despite this being a no-hitter.  Morales’s control problems are still there, as he walked six batters in five innings.  That’s not good.  He got sent down in part because he walked 17 in 25.1 innings in the majors this year.

That’s essentially Franklin Morales in a nutshell.  When he’s on, he’s unhittable.  But the walks just frustrate the hell out of you.  He’s the opposite of Greg Reynolds, another 22-year-old who started for the Rockies today.  Reynolds has almost impeccable control, but he doesn’t miss bats.  Morales misses plenty of bats, but his control can be frustratingly bad at times.  It’s almost as if you could fuse Morales and Reynolds, with Morales’s stuff and Reynolds’s control… you’d have one hell of a pitcher.

Drew’s already written about Reynolds’s start today, and I’ll just say that Reynolds needs to find his groundball stuff that’s been working so well for him in the minor leagues and try to translate that to the majors.  In 33.1 innings at AAA this year (and, keep in mind, the PCL is hitter-friendly to the extreme), Reynolds surrendered just three home runs.

In 5.2 innings today, the damage was two longballs.  In San Diego.  Against the Padres’ offense.  To Scott Hairston and Khalil Freaking Greene.  A guy who got more than two groundouts for every flyout or lineout in the minor leagues today got seven groundouts and nine flyouts.  Ouch.  And he can’t even blame the ballpark.

One more minor league performance to report: Aneury Rodriguez, a 20-year-old in A-ball who sometimes gets overlooked, had a one-hit shutout against Lake Elsinore.  Opponents are hitting just .220 off him for the year.  Wow.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 8:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.