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    Reds MiLB Notebook: Hunter Parks brings the velocity

    Doug Gray 10

    Hunter Parks took the mound for the Dayton Dragons last night and he tossed five shutout innings while allowing just two hits and two walks while striking out nine batters. The nine strikeouts for Parks was a new career high, topping a previous best of eight that came back in May against the Peoria Chiefs.

    While Hunter Parks has never really been considered a soft tosser by any means, he was throwing harder than usual on Tuesday night. He came out of the gate throwing 96 MPH and topped out at 98 on the night. And the Great Lakes hitters were having all kinds of problems handling his stuff. Parks had four swinging strikes on his fastball and seven more on his slider.

    The shutout performance for Parks lowered his ERA to 3.44 on the season. He had made 13 starts for Dayton this season and allowed just 39 hits in his 52.1 innings pitched. The right-hander has struck out 56 batters, showing plenty of ability to miss bats.

    He has struggled at times to throw strikes, though, walking 34 batters on the season. In the first five starts of the season he walked eight batters in 24.2 innings pitched. But over the next seven starts his control wavered and he handed out 24 free passes in 22.2 innings pitched. That led up to last night’s outing when he showed good control for the most part.

    Callahan, Lopez extend hitting streaks

    Things have been going well for Austin Callahan of late. He hit just .234/.324/.373 in the first two months of the season. June was a bit up-and-down, but the final week saw him run off a hitting streak of seven games. He’s added to it in the first three games of July, picking up two hits and a walk for Dayton last night. During the 10-game hitting streak he’s gone 15-40 (.375) with a walk and seven extra-base hits (leading to a .600 slugging percentage).

    Alejo Lopez also extended his hitting streak to 10 games on Tuesday night. His on-base streak was also extended to 18 games. Lopez has been hitting well for the last month-and-a-half. On May 17th he was hitting just .238/.310/.331 for the Louisville Bats. In his 36 games played since that point he’s hit .346/.446/.496 with 21 walks and 25 strikeouts in 159 plate appearances.

    Doug Gray
    Doug Gray is the owner and operator of this website and has been running it since 2006 in one variation or another.

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    10 Responses

    2. Hunter might have gotten a little extra Emotional gas from the White Caps shortstop Taylor Young. In Young’s second time at bat Parks through a fastball that went about a foot over Young’s head. Young takes a few steps toward mound and starts chirping. Nelson and umpire got in front of him and was quickly stopped his movement though he keeled chirping. Young was a little dumb in that 290 pound Ruben Ibarra came in and stood next to Parks. From that point on Parks’ velocity increased.

      Unfortunately the Dragons snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when the replaced Parks with rehabbing Eddy DeMurius who was absolutely terrible.

      1. That was the final batter Parks faced all night.

        I get where Young was coming from. He got hit by a pitch earlier in the game and then you came 96 over his head and behind him?

    3. Are exit velos available for draft prospects anywhere?

      Interested in a player like Max Clark or Jacob Wilson. Guys that find the barrel but don’t have huge HR power.

      1. A little research on google says Clark is at 103 exit velo per mlb.com. Couldn’t really find much on Wilson.

      2. Hard to hit HR’s when HS pitchers don’t pitch to you. Max drew 50 something walks and rarely sees fastballs on inner half. He has plenty of pop when pitchers make mistakes.

    4. Hunter Parks sounds like an awful lot like several other pitchers we have in this system. To be honest almost every team has several of these pitchers with high velocity and low control. Until he can command his pitches it’s unlikely he will ever find success at the highest level. I see nothing that suggests he can just looking at his stats. In fact his SO/BB ratio is slightly worse this year.

      1. On the positive, going into the draft, Parks had only recently started pitching and he’s only added 146 pro innings in 30 starts. You’re correct that one-start-does-not-a-prospect-make, but he has a really good arm.

    5. What would a package of Blake snell and Josh hader at deadline cost reds? Would a package centered on arroyo and collier peak pads interest?

      1. IDK, I wouldn’t give the 26th, and 57th prospect in baseball for 2 rentals. If you believe in the trade simulators, Hader is an 8.3, Snell is a 7.4, and Arroyo on his own is a 19.2.

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