I’ve been getting a lot of prospect stalking in at the end of the year, as you can see. After being too lazy to make it out to Trenton basically at all in the past, I made my third trip there in two months last night. The objective was to get a Jesus Montero bobblehead (which I did) and take a bunch of pictures.
Young Manny Banuelos was on the mound to start for Trenton. He was not at his best but his stuff mostly kept batters off balance. He got some swing and misses on high fastballs and his changeup was a killer but he used a lot of pitches early and wasn’t able to complete five innings. He recorded six strikeouts in 4.2 innings, walking two. Akron scored two while he was on the mound but both runs scored on an errant throw by third baseman Justin Snyder, making them unearned.
I was definitely impressed by the small lefty and his stuff. He’s but 19 and obviously has a bit of fine tuning to do but the kid’s got a bright future. I would think he starts next year in Trenton getting bumped to Scranton Wilkes-Barre pretty quickly if things goes well.
Here’s a video of Banuelos tossing a pitch, to give you an idea of how he throws:
Not much effort with big results. Pretty freaking awesome.
Austin Romine, who’s been in a bit of a slump lately (likely at least partly because this is his first full season catching all the time) had a decent night at the plate. He was 1-3 with a walk and a 2B, and all of his at bats were quality. He seems to be getting his bat back on track, and he’s headed to the AFL to put a bit more work in. I’m not sure how much he’ll play there, I would be shocked if the organization wants to push him that much given the circumstances.
Austin Romine
Corban Joseph has had some trouble adjusting to AA and struggled a bit more tonight, striking out twice. I think that he’ll adjust and be okay but obviously that won’t be happening until next year. His sometimes iffy defense looked a lot better tonight than when I saw him last, he made a couple of nice rangey plays including a scoop with a nice toss to the shortstop to start a doubleplay.
Corban Joseph
Depending on what the team decides to do with David Adams it’s possible that Joseph starts out playing 3B for Trenton next year, moving back to 2B if/when Adams gets the bump up to AAA. Or vice versa, of course, but Adams is a better fielder and more likely to stick there. Neither of them are sure things at second.
Pat Venditte made his first AA appearance, which was exciting for a lot of people but not so much for me. I saw him several times on Staten Island on 2008 and knew what to expect. He was the same Pat I knew from those wonderful Short Season A days, though he only threw from the left side. His slider (from the left) still has a nasty bite and he got a strikeout and two routine groundouts.
As usual, I took a lot of pictures. If you like pictures of baby baseball players, here’s a link to the full gallery.
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| Trenton Thunder 09-02-10 |
