Richmond Area Week 2

No affiliation with Deep Run, but a 10th grader, Kyle Baird, threw a 5 inning no-no against Lee Davis last night.  Lee Davis beat the number one rated team in the area, Freeman, last week, and Adam Trice hit two home runs off of Freeman's ace.  Kyle is a tall, lanky right hander who obviously has a bright future.  Deep Run won 12-0 in five.  

Prince George 5 vs LC Bird 0

 

Jackson Rivera tossed an efficient complete game shutout for PG

Cosby 6-1 over Matoaca

 

JRHS 10-1 over Manchester.

Sophomore Joe Hunt pitched 6 in the Cosby game and looked really good.  He threw strikes with 4 K's and lots of ground balls.  Zach Mort closed out the 7th with 2 K's and a flyout to CF.  Offensively, Matt Pita went 2-3 with a 3b & 2b.  Bryce Fitzgerald & Tyler Smith both had 2b.  Fitzgerald also had a great defensive day laying out for a couple of catches out in RF.

Freeman over Hermitage last night. Score should not be revisited. Decent game for 4 though

Freeman over Henrico in 5

Adam Trice at it again.  4-4 with 2 2B and a CG 11K effort on the mound to lead Lee Davis over Patrick Henry 10-2.

Deep Run beats Freeman 3-1

Hanover over Tucker 8-1 - Hanover has some serious depth to their staff.  Lyttle, Gregory, Dragum and Moore all threw tonight and all of them were 85-87 with excellent secondary stuff.  Very impressive High School staff.

 

Manchester outlasts Cosby 2-1 in 8 innings.  Butts and Mort in an excellent tussle on the bump.

 

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From what I have seen so far this spring this might be one of the deepest years for pitching in the area.  Easily 20+ HS arms that regularly sit in the mid to upper 80's with some polish, command and solid secondary stuff.  If the weather would cooperate this could be fun to watch.

 

The ones I have seen so far are: Freeman's Lynch, Stewards Enright, LD with Trice and Sorokowski, CH with Murdock, PG with Rivera, PH with Strong and Harrington, JRHS with Roberts, Arnold and Winder, TD with Eaton and Johnston just to name a few.  Get out and catch these guys if you have a chance.  

 

One of the best regular season games I've seen in a long time.  Very reminiscent of Dominion District pitching duels of yore.  Lots of outstanding defensive plays at crucial times by both teams especially in the outfield.  A tip of the cap to Nick Butts for finishing the game as he got hit very hard on the leg by a line drive come-backer.  Both pitchers had it going on.

Griffin Roberts' game against Manchester earlier this week established him as a dominant force to reckon with this year.  90-92 with some of the nastiest fastball movement you will ever see.  Slider is very high level for a high school pitcher.  Kept a change-up in reserve, used it only late in the game and with devastating effects.  Mound presence was terrific.  Had command all game; did hit two guys, but pitches weren't so much wild as tailing in so much the batters had already extended into a position where they couldn't get out of the way.  I guess you could say, just enough wildness to put the fear of God into hitters.  If he does this consistently, watch out.

 

Gave up one run on 4 hits but 2 were bloopers that, IMHO, could reasonably have been caught.

Griffin Roberts is a great sign for Wake Forest. A lot of coaches saw him during his junior year but because the radar gun didn't give them the number they wanted, they passed. It didn't take much projection to see that he has a live arm, great movement and that maturation was going to add that little extra tick of veto they were looking for. Some VA coaches are going to be shaking their heads wondering why they didn't "see" it, IMO

VaBaseball1919,

 

I'm looking forward to seeing Griffin Roberts pitch. MidloDad is giving him a ringing endorsement as well, so he must be pretty darn good.

 

Let's give Wake Forest credit for grabbing a VA talent from underneath the likes of UVA and VT.  The young man got seen by the right people at the right time....serendipity?  These VA coaches are looking at thousands of kids, and every so often a few slip through the cracks.  It happens all the time.  

We had seen 87-88 out of Griffin through last season, but honestly you could go to a game and he'd run 82-84 on 95% of his fastballs.  At the end of last summer, things clicked for him and the velo is there consistently 90+ now.  But I was most impressed with how he attacked the strike zone and how unflappable he was.  He pitched like a guy who was in command and, with quiet confidence, knew it.