A question to the reader: If your team’s home opener was postponed– one of just two games in April for which fireworks are slated–and you bought tickets for the makeup double header the next day, would you not expect the previously scheduled fireworks to happen at the conclusion of the rescheduled night game? Wouldn’t you think that the team would just keep the fireworks around for the real home opener? Did the firework guys have to be somewhere else? Disappointing.http://Consultation Visit:
You know who still set off fireworks Wednesday night (good segue, me)? Mets top-10 prospect Jonah Reid Tin Chee Matthew Tong. According to mlb dot com, he slots in right behind Nolan McLean and Brandon Sproat as the third-best pitching Mets farmhand, but the three are really interchangeable. His major league comp is easy to spot and makes aspiring baseball understanders (like myself) feel capable of recognizing patterns; Tong’s small frame (he’s listed at 6’1”, but from where I was sitting, I’d be surprised if he were much taller than 5’11”) in addition to his explosive over-the-top delivery could make even the casual fan think of Big Time Timmy Lincecum. The delivery and diminution is where the comparison ends, though: Whereas Lincecum was the tenth overall pick of the 2006 draft, Tong went 209th overall in his draft just a few years ago, and only started drawing attention recently. And, visually speaking, the Freak was very “get a haircut, hippie!”, whereas Tong is very “what a nice Canadian man”.
Another major leaguer whose visage Tong bears is Walker Buehler. The first and most striking similarity between the two is their predilection for the tightest, most quad-accentuating baseball pants ever made (Strider buys from the same store, clearly). More relevant, however, is the fact that they both deploy a hard cutter/slider to complement a high-IVB “rising” fastball. On Wednesday, that rising fastball was *almost* Tong’s best offering. It induced lunging, Stantonian swings and misses even though it sat 93-95, well in line with the MLB average. Sitting behind home plate gave me a pretty good understanding of what a “sneaky fastball” looks like: Despite Tong’s middling velocity, the Yard Goats were still often a month and a day late with their swings and actually went down looking at a fastball (see also. staring, gaping) on two of Tong’s five k’s.
Unfortunately, the fastball was all over the place. As were the slider, changeup, and curve. Tong ended up throwing just 53% of his pitches for strikes, walking five and hitting a batsman while recording just twelve outs. He worked himself into a fair amount of 3-0 counts that resulted in him grooving a four-seamer that might not cut it at a higher level. Either his fastball was so nasty that it actually deceived the Binghamton catcher (MiLB vet Matt O’Neill) or he was aiming for the umpire (which may have been warranted, based on the strike zone I saw), but about four or five fastballs sailed right over the glove and head of O’Neill.
Tong’s second-most frequent offering was his changeup, actually, and it was filth. It sat 84-86 and topped at out 87 (maybe 88?). Apparently he holds it with a Vulcan grip, which would lead me to believe it probably has some splitter-esque spin. It also has nasty arm-side movement that generated a ton of whiffs, even when he clearly missed his spot. In my notes I wrote, “he’s spamming change, and for good reason”.
His slider, which registered as a cutter on Binghamton’s scoreboard, was almost as impressive. It looked super hard and sat 86-89, but topped out at 91. MLB dot com says his slider is 82-84, but 84 was on the low end of what I saw Wednesday. Tong felt comfortable throwing it in any count to both lefties and righties, and it also garnered a lot of swinging strikes even when left in unfavorable spots.
Noticeably absent was his curveball, which had been his favorite secondary offering as far as I knew. He threw it just twice; both ended above the zone, and one of them clipped a Yard Goat. I truly think it’s fascinating that Tong went almost completely without his second-best graded pitch (65 fb and 55 curve, according to mlb dot com) and still held the Yard Goats to just two soft grounders with eyes.
Two of his three earned runs came when he walked the first two batters of the fifth inning, both of whom were allowed to score by some random Binghamton reliever. The Yard Goats manufactured their first run in the second inning, when catcher-playing-out-of-position 1B Jose Cordova fought off a fastball that just snuck past through the hole between first and second. Colorado 2B Dyan Jorge (hitting .429 with a homer in 21 ABs so far), who had walked and swiped a bag just prior, was only able to score because the quality of contact was so weak.
OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPENED: Ryan Clifford absolutely roped an RBI double on a super lazy breaking ball. Lefty on lefty crime too; he can’t not put together a good at-bat. Jett was sat down on strikes thrice and looked lost, although his speed would play at any level. Also, he’s incredibly small. http://Consultation Visit: