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Mike,

My son and I took in the Redhawks “sound” thrashing of the Nashville Sounds the other night. As usual, we try to sit close to the bullpen.

Observations: 1). El Duque seems to be a really nice guy and looks like a pitching coach interacting with the other bullpenners. He seemed to be a mentor to Feliz and Madrigal and took a special interest in Feliz. He also seemed to be an interpreter for them as well. Feliz seems wise enough to pay close attention to all that El Duque shared. At one point he was demonstrating some pitch to Feliz. Feliz was intently watching and El Duque was a patient, skilled teacher – repeating the fingering position several times for emphasis. He seems to have ditched the exaggerated leg kick in the wind up. El Duque threw an enormous number of pitches before taking the mound (albeit, not very hard throws), threw one inning, and then threw quite a few pitches afterward. During the lone inning he pitched, he served up a blast to Gillispie, the lone run scored against the Redhawks. When he returned to the bullpen, he explained to the group that he under estimated the #6 batter and pointed with both index fingers to his head and grimmaced, indicating that he made a mental error. He will have a very good impact on those Latin pitchers as well as the other bullpenners. Early in the game he took a trip to the dug out b/w innings and came back with a handful of bubble gum. Humbly, though he may be close to twice the age of some bullpenners, he went down the conga line and offered each player gum. A few took him up on it and a few didn’t. Was a nice gesture from a guy who had been with the Yanks in their 90’s heyday! He could have acted like a prima donna and been cranky because he was no longer in his prime. Vizquel for Elvis, Guardado, now El Duque! The Ranger braintrust really seems to have their act together and are making some good decisions so far as role models for the younger players. Those three have been to the wars and have numerous skins on the walls.

2). Watching Feliz warm up, I can see what scouts say about his effortless heater. He nearly threw a warm up pitch by the bullpen catcher several times. He must have a lot of wrist snap since his arm speed doesn’t seem exaggerated. He overmatched the Sounds hitters although his line score is not overwhelming. Everything was hit late and to the opposite field. The first couple of pitches were amazing. They were violent fastballs. Like Mendoza, he threw way too many pitches in his limited 1.2 innings (44). Didn’t see any radar gun pops, but bet he was close to 100 several times.

3). Mendoza threw too many pitches, too many baserunners, but he got out of every jam scoreless. Seems to be able to bare down when he has to.

4 Golson and Bourbon covered a lot of turf, although Golson misplayed a liner that I thought he should have been able to shoestring catch. My son thought it was a single and a two base error, as it bounded by him almost to the fence. The scorer gave the Sound batter, Adam Heather, a triple but that is very generous and home cooked scoring. At best, the liner should have been a single, if Golson had charged in fearlessly, it might have been caught.

5). The pitching coach, Clark, really seems to relate to the bullpen and they seem to respond very well to his leadership. He trudged down to the bullpen after the 3rd inning and stood in front of the semi-circle of pitchers. He stated that Mendoza had thrown 43 pitches already and he would be allowed about 60 max. He pointed to A. J. Murray and said that he would have to finish the 4th inning and that the 4th batter was a lefty. He then pointed to El Duque, then Feliz, and said that Madrigal would close. As things turned out, Mendoza finished the inning without Murray’s help. Murray came back to the bullpen and didn’t get in. El Duque pitched the 5th, Feliz pitched 1.2, and Clayton Hamilton finished the 7th and the 8th. Gordon closed rather than Madrigal since the score was so lopsided.

6). Clayton Hamilton was impressive. He could really hum the ball – seemed to reach mid 90’s. He now sports a 2.81 ERA. Perhaps another lightly regarded pitcher who catches on.

7). The speed of the Redhawks offense really produced a number of hurried throws, missed pegs to second, and wreaked general havoc. Probably not many teams at any level that can have Golson, Bourbon and Vallejo cranking it up around the bases.

8). Almost the entire bullpen has turned over since we were at the last Red Hawk game earlier in the season. These guys seemed to get along well and have a lot of potential whereas the Turnbull group earlier – didn’t seem to get along or care for one another.

9). I especially wanted to see Max Rameriz. He tatooed the ball nearly every at bat. Looked like he might hurt someone he hit the ball so hard. Bet he loses out on a few extra base hits because the ball gets to the outfielders soo quickly. On the other hand, if it is not right at the OFs, it probably goes to the wall for extra bases. He did a good job catching and the Sounds didn’t try to steal on him. He went 2-4 with a BB and a K.

Have a great day!

Stan Kinchen
Nashville

Good report Stan. Thanks for sharing.

The Newberg Report has a nice ‘first-person’ story from Tatusko himself on the game, in the form of inning-by-inning thoughts.

Here’s the link:

http://www.newbergreport.com/article.asp?articleid=1490

No Stan, keep posting it here, and keep going to ball games. This is great!

Stan, thanks for taking the time to put that together and share your great info and insights.