Last time we looked at how our 1-5 prospects were fairing this year. Now it is time for the 6-10 group:
6. Drew Hutchison: Well, you know, he's on the 60-day DL now. We won't see him again until September, at best. Before the injury, we couldn't have asked for better. He had 3 starts at New Hampshire, with a 2.16 ERA. In his first few starts he seemed always to have one poor inning that would ruin an otherwise good start, but he seemed to be improving with each start. Drew has a 5-3 record with a 4.60 ERA, in 11 starts, 58.2 innings, 59 hits, 8 home runs, 20 walks and 49 strikeouts. Pretty decent for a 21 year old. If he can pick up where he left off, when he comes back from the injury, we'll really have something.
7. Daniel Norris: Daniel's first pro season in Bluefield has just started, he's made 2 starts and had 1 relief appearance.3.75 ERA over 12 innings, 7 hit, 1 home run, 4 walks, 11 k. He being held to 4 innings per appearance. Norris just turned 19 in April.
8. Deck McGuire: Deck is having a tough time of it. Last year he had a 2.75 ERA between Dunedin and New Hampshire. This year, in New Hampshire, his ERA is 6.27 in 16 starts. It isn't going well, if it was we'd have be watching him in Toronto by now. In 80.1 he has allowed 91 hits, 12 home runs, 33 walks with just 53 strikeouts. He's not even getting ground balls, 0.8 ground outs per fly out. It is only his second pro season, we shouldn't expect him to always have it easy, but this has been so bad. He's not the first pitcher to struggle in Double-A, hopefully he will figure it out.
9. A.J. Jimenez: A.J. has been on the disabled list since mid-May and is done for the season after Tommy John surgery. Before that he was having a bit of a tough time in his first look a Double-A. He is hitting .257/.295/.371 in 27 games, with 2 home runs, 10 RBI, 2 stolen bases, 5 walks and 14 strikeouts. But then, small sample size He was throwing out 55% of base runners foolish enough to try to steal on him. I have a hard time writing off his offensive struggles as caused by his injury when he was throwing so well. Catchers do tend to have up and down years with the bat. The really bad part is that he is going to lose a year of development time.
10. Aaron Sanchez: Aaron has been absolutely amazing in 16 games, 9 starts. He is 7-0, 0.63 ERA, 29 hits, 30 walks, 62 strikeouts in 57 innings. Lots of ground outs, 2.69 per fly out. The only down side is he is walking too many. He turned 20 just yesterday. He's in Lansing now but, if he keeps doing so well, you'd expect him to be moved up to Dunedin soon. .