Kinda long entry today. Elsinore report and other stuff.

Elsinore Report

As is our custom, we arrived at the stadium in the second inning. Unfortunately, this meant we missed all the scoring by the home team. The Storm jumped on Lancaster starter Doug Slaten for three runs in the third, thanks to a Xavier Nady RBI double and a two-run homer from Ben Johnson. After that, Slaten completely dominated, allowing just two hits over the final eight innings.

On the Storm side, 19-year-old LHP Mark Phillips made his home debut. Phillips is pretty much as advertised. Tremendous stuff, wobbly command. His fastball was in the 89 – 93 mph range according to the scoreboard, which Sean McCall, radio voice of the Storm, says is about 2 – 3 mph slow, so more like 91 – 96, which corroborates the reports. Looked better in the middle of that range, pitches appeared to have more movement. At the high end, he was leaving his pitches up and out of the strike zone.

Phillips didn’t throw the breaking ball much, but the few times he got it over for a strike were impressive. He actually got two right-handed hitters to buckle their knees. The curve has the makings of a very effective pitch if he can improve his command of it. With runners on, Phillips displayed a very weak move to first and was slow to the plate; I’m not sure how many he was responsible for, but Lancaster stole 10 bases altogether, and not one of them could be pinned on catcher Tony Cosentino. On the positive side, Phillips was downright nasty on hitters when he got into trouble.

I like to compare guys in the minors to guys I’ve seen in the bigs, not necessarily to place expectations on the former, but to give people an idea of the type of player he is and what he might become. It’s important to put that disclaimer out there every now and then just so nobody misunderstands what I’m doing. That said, the guy Phillips reminds me of is a young Mark Langston. Similar body type, similar arsenal, similar command problems. Padre fans will be in for a treat if he has a career anywhere near that of Langston. Here’s hoping he stays healthy and continues to develop. The stuff is definitely there.

Because he was so inefficient with his pitches (23 in the first inning alone), Phillips was lifted after five innings. His final line: 5-1-0-0-7-5.

Elsewhere in the game, Nady hit the ball hard every time up. Of course, I missed the only one that landed safely but he made some hard outs, too. Johnson made a couple really nice plays in right field. Again. One was a sinking liner that he came on to snag, and the other, in the same inning, was a laser throw that nailed a guy trying for a double. I’ve said it before but Johnson has a great arm. Vince Faison looked confused by any pitches that moved, although he did a nice job of slapping a pitch past the shortstop in his final at-bat. Probably the approach he should be taking rather than trying to yank everything over the right-field fence.

The Storm lost the game, by the way, 7-3. All seven runs came in the sixth inning, with five at the expense of RHP Michael Nicolas, making his Elsinore debut. His line for the night was 0.1-3-5-5-2-0. Looks terrible, and it is (135.00 ERA). But what the line doesn’t tell you is the reaction he got from the scouts. I don’t know anything about Nicolas, except that he pitched fairly well at Ft. Wayne this year (62.2 IP, 44 H, 34 BB, 70 SO, 3.45 ERA) before being promoted.

His first pitch registered at 96 mph on the scoreboard. The three scouts right in front of me all looked at each other in disbelief. Nicolas proceeded to pump a series of fastballs in the 91-97 mph range, most coming in around 94-95 according to the scoreboard. With movement. I’ve never seen so much tapping of radar guns. Problem was, the kid couldn’t find the plate and he had no real second pitch, so when he did manage to throw a strike, he got hit.

It’s hard to know what to make of a performance like that, but I’ll say this much: He sure got everyone’s attention. Unfortunately he couldn’t hold Phillips’ lead, and after that it was pretty much the Doug Slaten show.

I took a bunch of pictures but haven’t had a chance to edit and load them. Hopefully within the next few days.

Other Stuff

• Gotta like the Jose Rijo comeback.
• How about Mike Darr’s first homer in over a year? Game-winner to lift the Pads to .500.
• Trevor Hoffman notched his 299th save as a Padre yesterday. By my count, only Dennis Eckersley, with 310 for the A’s, saved more games for one club. Because he’s only been pitching for about 10 years, Hoffman’s probably got a lot more mileage in his arm than most guys his age do.
• Baseball-Reference.com lists Hoffman at #25 among non-eligible pitchers, just behind Curt Schlling and ahead of Mariano Rivera. Eckersley, by the way, comes in at #4, between Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez. Langston, since I mentioned him, is at #18. Check out the entire list at their web site.
• I’ll be back at Elsinore tomorrow night. Eric Cyr is pitching, so I’ll be able to tell you about him. Catching a game in Sacramento this coming Thursday and Fresno the following Monday. In between, it’s the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. I’ll have my laptop with me so hopefully I’ll be able to do a few reports from the road.

That’s all for now (phew!)…