Last night left handed pitcher Wennington Romero took the mound for the Arizona League Reds as they took on the Dodgers. He would wind up taking the loss in the game, in another effort to show why the win stat is useless for anyone but the team.
The lefty allowed just one run in 5.0 innings, giving up one walk and striking out five batters. He racked up nine ground ball outs and had just one fly out. That’s been the story of the season for the 18-year-old Dominican native. Here’s his game-by-game log for the 2016 season so far.
| DATE | IP | H | ER | BB | K |
| 6/20/2016 | 5.0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| 6/26/2016 | 4.2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 7/4/2016 | 5.1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| 7/10/2016 | 5.0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Totals | 20.0 | 13 | 4 | 4 | 19 |
Wennington Romero didn’t jump onto the season this year, but he may still be a new name to a lot of you, even if you’re a loyal reader. He spent the 2015 year in the Dominican Summer League dominating as a 17-year-old. He posted a 2.13 ERA there last season in 71.2 innings with nine walks and 82 strikeouts. That was good enough to earn him a promotion to the United States this season.
He’s picked up right where he left off. Romero is well ahead of his peers in terms of polish. He pounds the strikezone and this year he’s been generating a high rate of ground balls as well. Through four starts, so small sample size alert, he’s gotten grounders on 60% of all of the balls put in play against him this year. Only 11.5% of the balls hit against him have been line drives.
Romero has been successful against both left handers and right handers this season. Righties are hitting just .185/.224/.278 against him in 58 plate appearances. Lefties are hitting just .188/.235/.188 with a walk and six strikeouts in 17 plate appearances. Both are obviously limited to a low number of plate appearances, but it’s an incredibly impressive start.
Alfredo Rodriguez update
Technically this isn’t really an update, but, it sort of it. From C. Trent Rosecrans:
#Reds Alfredo Rodriguez is scheduled to start play this week in Dominican Republic, starting there in part b/c he doesn’t have his visa yet
— C. Trent Rosecrans (@ctrent) July 11, 2016
I had mentioned the part about him not having a work visa yet as one possible reason that the Reds were starting Aldredo Rodriguez out in the Dominican Summer League. That makes a whole lot of sense. At times that can take several weeks to go through. How long that could take on Cubans, I really don’t know. Hopefully we will see him in the United States this season, before the Arizona Fall League.