Last night the Cincinnati Reds organization kicked off their minor league season. The weather didn’t cooperate for Dayton, but Nick Travieso, Robert Stephenson and David Holmberg all took the mound for their respective teams. Travieso put together the best outing of the bunch, allowing just one run over 6.2 innings with a walk and five strikeouts. Stephenson struggled early on but hit his groove in the middle of his start and looked stronger as the game went on. Holmberg never got into any sort of groove and struggled throughout the night. We know that the numbers ranged from very good to poor between these three guys, but what did they look like on the mound last night? Let’s take a look.
Nick Travieso
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The right hander had the best start of the night for the Reds farm system with the new team in the chain, the Daytona Tortugas. From a velocity standpoint he was sitting in the 92-94 range all night and was controlling the strikezone with the pitch well. He mixed in both his slider and his change up, using both pitches throughout the night. The slider topped out at 87 MPH and sat in the mid 80’s.
Robert Stephenson
At a first glance of the box score it seems like Stephenson had a ho-hum night, allowing three runs in 5.2 innings with two walks and seven strikeouts. Watching the game though gives a bit more information. Early in the game things looked reminiscent of 2014, struggling to find the strikezone often enough that he was falling behind most hitters. In the middle of the third inning though, after his second walk of the game, the right hander figured something out and from that point forward he controlled the strikezone well with not only his fastball, but his change up and breaking ball. After allowing a leadoff double in the sixth to one of the few BRewers prospects of note, Stephenson buckled down and struck out the next two batters before exiting the game as he reached his pitch count (which was somewhere in the 85-90 range, he’s listed as throwing 88 pitches. In April pitch counts are a little lower than they will be later in the season.). Stephenson was sitting 93-94 MPH with his fastball all night long and touched higher. Like Travieso, he mixed in both his change up and his breaking ball throughout the night. His change up was showing good horizontal movement, really coming in on right handers and running away from lefties.
David Holmberg
The left hander had easily the worst night of the three pitchers that took the mound to start last night. He allowed five runs in 4.1 innings pitched on seven hits and four walks. It could have been much worse. There were more than a few loud outs that were made and two very nice defensive plays up the middle by Irving Falu that ended two different innings. Holmberg struggled to conrol the strikezone or even keep the ball in the strikezone. When he did happen to find the strikezone all of his pitches were very hittable. His breaking ball was soft and sweepy without much bite. The fastball was soft, mostly in the upper 80’s and touching 90, and didn’t feature too much movement. Location was the biggest issue, but even when he was able to locate his pitches they just weren’t there on Thursday night and the hitters were able to tee off.
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