Andrew Abbott has been named as the Southern League pitcher of the week. There are only two reasons you should be surprised by this announcement – the first being that you missed what he did last week because you were in a coma (and hey, we’re all glad you’re doing better now and reading this!), and the other is that you were unaware that the Southern League handed out a player and pitcher of the week award.
The Southern League didn’t play a full week in the first week of the season. That meant that they didn’t have an award for those games. But they also didn’t just include those first three games with the second week, so Andrew Abbott may have been ripped off for an award in the first week when he fired off 4.2 hitless innings with 11 strikeouts.
His follow up performance was enough to make sure he got the hardware. The Chattanooga Lookouts left-handed starter tossed 6.0 shutout innings last week against the Mississippi Braves. In the start he allowed just two singles, walked no one, hit no one, and he racked up 14 strikeouts.
To this point in the season it’s tough to find any minor leaguer who has had a better start to the season than the lefty out of Virginia. Abbott has allowed three baserunners in 10.2 shutout innings and he’s struck out 25 of the 35 batters he’s faced. That’s a 71.4% strikeout rate for anyone trying to do the math in their head. Both his strikeout rate and his total strikeouts lead minor league baseball despite the fact that he’s only made two starts and some pitchers already have made three.
Last season there were 14 instances in which a Cincinnati Reds minor league player was named as either the player or pitcher of the week. Surprisingly, Andrew Abbott was not one of those players despite the very strong start and finish he had to the season.