Interview with Las Vegas 51's Manager Marty Brown: Part Two

Part two of my little chat with Marty Brown. As I mentioned yesterday, it would have been better to watch a couple of games before talking to him but that's life. 

How is Adam Loewen, a favourite of mine?

He is one of my favourites too. He works extremely hard. He's put together a very positive season in all aspects. Base running, he's gotten better, defensively he is very sound wherever I put him, like first base tonight. He's done a good job there. Offensively, he's had spells of being very very hot and very cold. Then he'll go to a point where he is very consistent for a long period of time. You don't see the relapses with no hits or moments when he looks lost, I haven't seen that. That's a good sign that he is getting closer to being more consistent that it takes to put together a good year.

Will he be a September call up?

If it were up to me he would be. Obviously it's not my decision. But they definitely will hear my views on it, I venture to say with the work he has put in and what he's done, they need to take a look at it. If he can get it done at that level, we'll never know unless we see.

He's in a tough spot without options...

It is a hard spot. I think his arm feels better now than before he was hurt. He's throwing the ball well, plays good defence, I hate to lose him, because he has put in so much hard work. This was kind of a year to see what Adam could do and he has responded real well.

David Cooper?

David Cooper can hit, there is no doubt about that. I think everyone believes that. The year he's put together is phenomenal. Whether his power numbers play at his spot? David has to play first base.  Where a guy like Adam Loewen could move to first or play corner outfield where you have a spot open. David is a first baseman or a DH. So with that lurking, does his power play? I know this, I'd take him over anybody with a man in score position with two outs. He'd figure out a way to get a hit.

What do you think of Eric Thames defence?

Well he was rough, really rough. Base running and defence was something he worked on a lot here. I thought he was making some progress, he did a lot of hard work here taking ground balls. We had him at first base taking ground balls, I think that will help him in the outfield too. He is very athletic, but he has a roughness to him in the outfield that looks worse than it likely is, it is just the way that Eric plays. It is a matter of more repetition,  with more time I think that he has the ability to get better.

What does Travis Snider have to work on down here?

Travis will be fine. I think he was just between pitches somewhat up there. We saw that happen here, at the beginning, when he got here. I think Chad Mottola (51's batting coach) is very good with him.

What do you mean by in between pitches?

He's not like on the fastball or on the breaking ball, so by the time he gets it figured out or sees the ball out of the hand, it is too late to react. Normally, you want to be on a fastball, dead on it, 100% and then react to something soft. Sometimes I think he gets in between, in the sense that he is ‘ok he's going to throw the change up here'. So the first changeup he sees, he tries to go get it. The key to pitching is to try to make the hitters do something they really don't want to do, that's kind of where I think Travis has been.

What have you seen from our recent trade pick up P.J. Walters?

He had a rough outing yesterday, his first two starts were very solid. Ge's not a big guy. He won't light up the radar gun, he's more about command. Yesterday he was up in the zone, he didn't have the command we saw in his first two outings. It could have just been a bad day. We'll run him back out there. I feel good about him out there. You could see he did a good job for us his first couple of times out, yesterday was one of those days.

I figured the Jays were looking at him for a bullpen spot?

I don't know, I really don't know. We got him in that trade and haven't seen that much of him. He had that one outing in Toronto before he came down. We are trying to build him up slowly. He had a set back the last game, we'd like him to get deeper into the pitch count. Next game we'll get him back to where we wanted him.

Mike McCoy has been up and down a lot...

He's got a great personality for it. He understands the situation. Anytime you can get to the big leagues it is a big thing. Michael takes a lot of pride in that. He feels as though he is a big league player. He tries to stay as prepared as he can. When he comes back it takes him 2 or 3 days to get back to his normal self. We try to take that into account, keep running him out there. Sure enough he'll have a really good game, he'll put up 5 balls in play and play hard and get 3 hits and play hard.

He is one of my favourites.

He's just a gamer.

He can do everything.

You'll like Lawrie a lot, he brings a lot of energy like Michael.