Eric Young Jr. has gotten off to a red hot start in the month of June with seven hits over his last two games. Pacing the league with 31 SB, Young has shown that he is a quite capable candidate to hit atop Colorado’s order as soon as the Rockies are ready to give him a shot. His HR yesterday was evidence that he has some potential to drive the ball with authority at times. Cameron Maybin had four hits yesterday and Will Venable had a big day at the plate with two HR and five RBI. Angels OF prospect Chris Pettit is working on raising his average back towards the .400 plateau as he had three hits, including his 4th HR and two doubles.
Yesterday’s top prospect is former Cincinnati Reds ace-in-waiting Homer Bailey. The Reds’ former 1st round pick from the ’04 draft has had a roller coaster season quite similar to his volitile professional career. Yesterday, he was on top of his game as he allowed just four hits over eight scorelesss innings, walking two and striking out five. For the season, Bailey is 5-5 at AAA Louisville with a 3.79 ERA and 22 BB/52 K over 59.1 IP. He has, at times, looked like a #1 starter (as shown by his April 29th 15 strikeout performance against Toledo). Other times, he has looked overmatched (as shown by his sole four innings, six run, six walk outing for Cincinnati earlier this season). Bailey reminds me a bunch of Boston’s Clay Buchholz as a pitcher with stuff that is far better than his performance at the major league level. On the upside, Bailey has been quite durable this season, going at least six innings in each of his last eight starts. He has had good control, allowing just the 22 walks, but he has also been a bit more hittable, surrendering a .264 BA to opposing hitters including 9 HR. He has historically been a flyball pitcher, which in a park like Cinergy Field, often spells D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R.
Bailey is just 23 years old and still has considerable upside that could be realized given the right opportunities. The Reds have shopped him around to several other clubs over the past season, and it may in fact be a change of scenery that puts him back on the right road to success. Two months in, the Reds are in the thick of a competitive NL Central hunt, though could be losing ground fast as Edwin Encarnacion is on the shelf until at least late June with a fractured wrist and Joey Votto is on the DL for an undisclosed personal issue.
The Reds are desperately in need of a bat and a couple more starts like this out of Bailey could be his ticket to a better opportunity with a new franchise. Watch this closely….
AAA Player of the Day—HOMER BAILEY
Other Notable Performances
Hitting:
- Cameron Maybin—4-5 R
- Angel Salome—1-3 2B RBI
- Jon Jay—2-5 R SB(12)
- Julio Borbon—1-4 R BB SB(15)
- Chris Johnson—2-4 3B R RBI
- Kila Ka’aihue—3-4 2B R
- Ben Copeland—4-5 HR(1) RBI 2B 3R
- Eric Young Jr.—3-5 HR(2) RBI 2B 2R
- Chris Pettit—3-4 HR(4) 2 RBI 2 2B
- Will Venable—3-5 2 HR(12) 5 RBI 2R
- Chad Huffman—2-3 2B R 2 BB
- Trevor Plouffe—2-4 HR(5) 2 RBI
- Drew Stubbs—2-5 2B R
- Drew Sutton—1-2 HR(2) 2 RBI 2 BB 2R
- Juan Miranda—2-4 3B R
- Will Rhymes—2-3 2B R BB SB(8)
- Brent Duglach—2-4 HR(5) 2 RBI BB SB(3)
- Gordon Beckham—1-4 2B R
Pitching:
- Chris Tillman—5 IP 4H 4 UER 4K L (5-1)
- Homer Bailey—8 IP 4H 2 BB 5K W (5-5)
