There was plenty to love on Saturday for the prospects in the Atlanta Braves systems, with some intriguing action at each level. Hurston Waldrep made the start for Gwinnett, but no one outshined Jhancarlos Lara who despite command trouble forced 21 swing-and-misses and 9 strikeouts. Down in Augusta that young offense is finding success, with Nick Montgomery quickly coming into his own with two home runs this weekend.
Box Score. His two walks, and especially the consistency of his release point, were marked improvements over his prior two starts, and the seven whiffs Waldrep got on his slider were encouraging. This was as well as he has commanded that pitch in a long time, putting the ball right off the edge of the plate on a consistent basis, and it was the pitch that served as his go-to strikeout offering for this game.
Another aspect to look at for Waldrep is the shape of his fastball. The most interesting part of that is that his fastball is falling into two separate clusters — one with his prior cut-carry shape and one cluster with significantly more horizontal movement. The Stripers got a lot of offense from Eddys Leonard in this game, and for a guy who was a very cheap minor league pickup he has in a small sample done some intriguing things at the plate. The drawback is that his bat is a bit slow so he can struggle to hit fastballs consistently and his approach is a bit aggressive, but as a depth infielder he has a much higher ceiling than you would typically see from such a low-stakes acquisition.
Well, at least until you look at the 21 whiffs he got in this game. The pure stuff is ready to make the leap to Triple-A, in fact he could get outs at the big league level if the Braves pushed him there, but his command has fallen off of a cliff since he was promoted to Double-A last season. Lara was able to get into the groove for the first time this season after allowing the first two batters to reach in the third inning, and even down to his body language he seemed to be pitching with an edge that was just barely missing in the first couple of outings.
Lara retired 11 of the last 13 batters, seven via strikeout with only one walk, and Blue Wahoos batters whiffed on 17 of their 26 swings. Unfortunately for Lara that success was something that his offense could not match in support of him. Columbus got on base plenty, drawing seven walks and getting a hit batter, and they loaded the bases in the first inning, but they consistently failed to come through with runners in scoring position.
