Short-season baseball is finally underway, and the Grand Junction Rockies have already played nine games. Their 5-4 record has them one game behind the Orem Owlz and Idaho Falls Chukars, who are tied atop the Pioneer League South.
Mike Nikorak’s triumphal return
After a very disappointing professional debut at Grand Junction last season, Mike Nikorak made his season debut on June 20th with mixed results. Nikorak scattered five hits and four walks over four innings but managed to only surrender one run thanks to six strikeouts.
Averaging a walk an inning was still an improvement for the first-round pick from last year who walked 37 batters in 26⅔ innings. However, Nikorak made yet another step forward in his second start, pitching five shutout innings and walking only one.
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DSL roster dominance
A quick look at the Grand Junction roster reveals a high number of Dominican Summer League (DSL) graduates populating the lineup and starting rotation. The first reason is simple, the Rockies brought over a great class of prospects, mostly position players, from the DSL this year.
Those DSL players, with a few exceptions, have also been working at the Rockies’ extended spring training camp all spring and were ready to hit the ground running. That has allowed the Rockies to bring along the drafted players assigned to Grand Junction a little more slowly, which has been their tendency over the last few years.
As the season progresses, expect to see more of the drafted players displacing some of the DSL players as the Rockies feel they are ready. This will be especially true in the starting rotation, though many of those displaced starters will still get plenty of innings piggy backing on starters with light workloads.
Taking a walk
Pedro Gonzalez was the most hyped of the DSL prospects to make his stateside debut after getting big signing bonus and hitting eight home runs in the DSL last season.
In eight games for Grand Junction Gonzalez has accumulated four extra-base hits, including his first home run. Unfortunately, those extra-base hits account for over half of his hits and he has a .226 batting average. Thankfully, Gonzalez has shown an improved willingness to walk and has drawn five free passes to up his on-base percentage to .342
There are usually some struggles when a player come stateside, so it’s good to see Gonzalez making adjustments.
Not so fast
Jonathan Piron, in his second tour at Grand Junction has been terrorizing pitchers with a .514 on-base percentage and .848 slugging percentage. He has been taking advantage of being on base over half the time to rack up an astounding 10 stolen base attempts already in nine game. Unfortunately for him, he’s only been successful on six of those attempts.
Who’s hot
- Jose Gomez - .400/.421/.486; 3 2B; 3 SB
- Joel Diaz - .333/.353/.636; 2 2B; 1 3B; 2 HR
- Manuel Melendez - .333/.344/.531; 3 2B; 1 HR
- Lorenz Ozuna - 3 G; 7 IP; 8 K; 1 BB
Who’s not
- Vince Fernandez - .158/.346/.211
- Cole Anderson - .240/.345/.440; 15 K
- Dakota Behr - 5 G; 8 IP; 11 ER
Let’s just act like that never happened
On Sunday, the Rockies lost to the Chukars 18-7. Five different Rockies pitchers gave up at least two earned runs led by Luis Gomez, who allowed six earned run in 2⅔ innings. The Rockies managed to score six runs in the last four innings but it wasn’t enough to catch up.
High scoring games in the minors—especially in the Pioneer League—aren’t all that unusual. However, this one was a bit more unusual as the high score wasn’t a result of sloppy minor league baseball. The Rockies pitchers only allowed two walks and neither error by the Rockies affected the score as all 18 runs were earned.
Pint watch
The much anticipated debut of Riley Pint, the Rockies’ flame-throwing first-round pick this year, is still unannounced. The current plan is for Pint to work on his mechanics and delivery on the side. Once he does start appearing in games, don’t be surprised to see an extremely limited pitch count for most of this season.