Last night I wrote about the strong outing for right hander Barrett Astin in the Arizona Fall League opener. The game was still going on when I published it, so how the others performed wasn’t written about. Well, it was a very good night for the Cincinnati Reds players that made the trip to the premiere fall league on Tuesday night. Zach Vincej homered on the night, going 2-5 with three runs batted in.
The home run comes as a bit of a surprise for Zach Vincej, who had a good season at the plate for Pensacola in 2016, but power wasn’t a big part of his game as he had just three home runs in 121 games. Blue Wahoos teammates Brandon Dixon and Chad Wallach also contributed to the offenses seven run output on the evening. While batting cleanup Brandon Dixon went 2-6 with a run batted in, stole a base and he scored two runs. Also of note is that Dixon got the start at third base. Chad Wallach went 1-5 on the night but he made it count with a double that drove in two runs and he also later scored.
On the mound it wasn’t just Barrett Astin that pitched well. Two other Cincinnati Reds pitchers got in on the action in the 11-inning tie. Evan Mitchell pitched a hitless 9th inning with a walk. When the game hit extra-innings Peoria turned the game over to Nick Routt. All he did was turn in two perfect inning with three strikeouts.
Let’s take a quick look at the pitch selection from the two pitchers.
| Pitcher | Pitch | Velocity |
| Evan Mitchell | Fastabll | 92-94 |
| Evan Mitchell | Slider | 86-88 |
| Nick Routt | Fastball | 88-91 |
| Nick Routt | SL/CT | 84-85 |
| Nick Routt | Change Up | 85 |
With Nick Routt’s pitch selection it’s worth noting that I’m going off of the Pitch F/X information here and the slider or cutter kind of fall in that area between where each pitch usually falls in the classification, so I’ve just listed it as a hybrid for now. There was only one pitch that would be considered a change up based on the movement, but it’s also possible it was just a pitch that got away on the release that caused change up like velocity on what could have been a fastball.
Overall it was a very nice day for the Cincinnati Reds in the Arizona Fall League. Everyone that played contributed in a big way and only Seth Varner and outfielder Brian O’Grady didn’t get into the game among those in the organization.