Thursday night in Chattanooga had something you don’t see happen all that often: A player leaping over the catcher on a play at the plate. That player was Robbie Tenerowicz and it may not have been the best thing. He had walked earlier in the inning and he was trying to score on a double off of the wall in center. The throw home beat him but he decided to attempt to leap over the catcher. He was tagged out mid front flip and landed on his shoulder as he rolled through the landing. Tenerowicz got up immediately but grabbed at his upper arm as he jobbed his way towards the dugout. He didn’t take the field when the next inning began. At this time no update.
Joe Boyle makes ’em miss
Earlier this week Joe Boyle took the mound against the Palm Beach Cardinals and struck out 10 of the 17 batters he faced in 4.0 shutout innings. He picked up 19 swinging strikes in the game. You should spend the next minute watching each and every one of them:
Here's 1 minute of Joe Boyle getting Palm Beach to swing and miss, roughly, 1 billion times from his last start pic.twitter.com/pIIAbntCME
— Doug Gray (@dougdirt24) September 16, 2021
In 2021 we’re dealing with a small sample size of mound time for Joe Boyle. He didn’t pitch in a game until August 3rd and his first four appearances all came at the complex level as he was rehabbing his way back from an injury that he suffered near the end of spring training. He’s now made four appearances with Low-A Daytona and he’s been consistently inconsistent. There have been a lot of walks – 13 of them in his 12.2 innings. There have also been a ton of strikeouts – 28 of them in his 12.2 innings.
Joe Boyle’s stuff is unquestionable. In the video above you can clearly see that his breaking ball is flat out filthy. What you can’t quite tell from the above video is that his fastball has been working 95-97 this season so far and is showing high spin rates (2500 RPM on average). The control absolutely has to be improved on, but the pure stuff he’s showing allows one to dream.
Jay Allen’s strong debut
When the Reds selected Jay Allen 30th overall in this summer’s draft the expectations were high. Considered to be very athletic, Allen was said to have all the tools you wanted to see from an outfielder. But it’s one thing to have those things said about you and another thing to get out on the field and show them all early on. That’s what Allen has been doing out in Arizona, though.
Last night he picked up another two hits for the Arizona Complex League Reds to raise his batting average to .316 on the season. He’s also walked eight times this year with just 10 strikeouts in 18 games – helping him post an on-base percentage of .437. Allen has also added six extra-base hits along the way to lead to a .509 slugging percentage. Oh yeah, he also has 13 stolen bases in 14 attempts. Small sample size of just 18 games, but it’s hard to look at the performance thus far and come away as anything but impressed.