Tony Cingrani is gracing the front page of Milb.com today. The article isn’t just about his excellent start, but also the Bakersfield Blaze and their 10 game winning streak. Despite the winning streak, they are basically tied for first place (one less win, one less loss than San Jose). With Tony Cingrani, his numbers are just bonkers given that he is pitching in the California League. Take a look for yourself:
| W | L | ERA | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | BF | WHIP | BB% | K% | K/BB |
| 2 | 1 | 0.39 | 23 | 9 | 0 | 5 | 28 | 82 | 0.61 | 6.1% | 34.1% | 5.6 |
Those numbers are video game like.
Cingrani was named the Baseball America pitching prospect of the day.
He also was the ‘Helium Watch’ player on this weeks Prospect Hot Sheet.
Rice pitchers everywhere have heard the whispers of how Owls pitchers struggle once they hit pro ball. Reds lefthander Tony Cingrani is doing his part to erase the stigma. The 22-year-old finished 10 innings short of qualifying to win the Pioneer League ERA title last year when he went 3-1, 1.75. After skipping low Class A, he’s been even better in his first four starts in the California League. He’s now 2-1, 0.39 with only 14 baserunners (nine hits and five walks) in 23 innings. At 6-foot-5, Cingrani uses excellent extension to make hitters feel like his 92-94 mph fastball is on them extremely quickly.
Jason Parks at Baseball Prospectus addressed Cingrani in this afternoons chat:
Immanuel #Want (Prussia): Has your opinion on Tony Cingrani changed at all? He’s long been pigeonholed as a bullpen arm due to a lack of secondary stuff, but he is absolutely dominating as a starter (10.7 K/9, 5.6 K/BB) in the offense-friendly Cal League and a AA promotion can’t be far off. Can he stick?Jason Parks: Just spoke to a scout about him. The arm strength is fantastic, and he’s shoving it right now as a starter. But everything I hear is that he profiles better as a bullpen arm. I’d like to hold off until we can see how the breaking ball develops and if he can remain effective as a starter. Helium guy right now.
John Sickels took a quick look at JJ Hoover over at MinorLeagueBall.com yesterday as his prospect of the day. He worries that his extreme flyball tendencies could be a hindrance, but aside from that he seems to really like him.
I was able to watch both the Dayton and Pensacola games last night. Here are some things that stood out to me:
- Mark Serrano throws a very good breaking ball.
- Wirfin Obispo has some interesting mechanics. Wish there were some radar readings on him mentioned during his outing by the announcers. Going to have to check more into this because he was overpowering the hitters with his fastball.
- Henry Rodriguez had a good night at the plate, but I was more interested in watching his defense, which was solid at third base. I would like to have a chance to see him just fire one over to first when he has to in order to see just how strong his arm can be over there, but that situation has yet to present itself.
- Kyle McMyne throws hard, but his breaking ball was awfully impressive last night. Scouting reports last year were that he flashed a good one, but it was often very inconsistent. Time will tell if it still is, but last night it was on and a very good pitch.
- Ryan Wright has a very smooth swing.
- Junior Arias still has an absolute cannon of an arm.
More notes from the games over the weekend.