Today is the day that the World Baseball Classic gets going for every team, but some pools have been playing for nearly a week. Two Cincinnati Reds pitchers got into their first games of the WBC in the last 24 hours. Kyle Glogoski made the start for Team Australia last night against China. After running into a bit of trouble in the first inning when he stranded two runners, Glogoski made things a bit easier on himself and finished with 2.2 shutout innings while striking out five batters.
Kyle Glogoski steps up for Australia ??
The @Reds prospect strikes out 5 over 2 2/3 scoreless innings in WBC pool play. pic.twitter.com/FUnngyzoUE
— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) March 11, 2023
There’s pitch tracking in all of the stadiums that are being used for the event around the world. Last night here’s what we got on Kyle Glogoski:
He was throwing four pitches: A 4-seam fastball, a 2-seam fastball, a change up, and a curveball. His 4-seamer averaged 87.6 MPH, his 2-seamer averaged 88.7 MPH, while his change up was 80.8, and his curveball was coming in at 77.7 MPH. He had multiple swings-and-misses on all of his pitches except for his curveball, which had no swings-and-misses (he threw four of them).
Earlier this morning the Netherlands took on Taiwan and fell 9-5. Pitching the final inning for the Netherlands was Arij Fransen. In 2022 he spent time in the ACL with the Reds and in Daytona with the Tortugas.Fransen gave up two hits and a run in his inning of work while picking up a strikeout.
On Saturday morning Arij Fransen was throwing just two pitches. He threw his 2-seam fastball 10 times and averaged 92.0 MPH while topping out at 94.2. He also threw one slider at 82.6 MPH. Fransen got two swings-and-misses on his fastball and also got a swing-and-miss on the slider he threw.
For those of you who have been around for a while you may remember Juan Carlos Sulbaran. He last pitched for the Reds farm system in 2012, and last pitched in affiliated ball in 2016 with the Cardinals organization. He’s been pitching in the Dutch Major Leagues since, and pitched winter ball this past year, too. Sulbaran pitched this morning for the Netherlands as well and threw 2.0 perfect innings with a strikeout. The Netherlands roster is full of former Reds players. Roger Bernadina, Didi Gregorius, Wladimir Balentien, and Chadwick Tromp all played in the game this morning.
Tromp was the hero of the Netherlands in their first game victory versus Cubs with his timely hitting and defense, especially his arm. Funny Tromp story. He had a cousin, of the same last name that played in Indians organization and Lake County at this time, his name was Sicnarf Tromp. Asked about how they came up with an odd name like that. He said it was Sicnarf’s dads name spelled backwards.
I had to read his name backwards 5 times before I got it. :)
Wow JC Sulbaran! He had a wipeout breaking pitch didn’t he?
Since he never made it I guess it did not wipeout as many as it should. His claim to fame was striking out Ivan Rodriguez in WBC.Actually blowing him away.