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- Hello, LSB
- Last homestand of the season for the 2021 Frisco RoughRiders. If you haven’t been out there for a month or so (*clears throat*), it’s gonna look like quite a different team than they were at the beginning of the year. Ragans, Crim, Foscue, Josh Smith, Chase Lee...all guys added shortly before or after the deadline who now have about a month of Double-A ball under their belts
- Cole Ragans (who’s gotten Big Haircut since the time of the banner pic above) was on the bump last night and he had quite the not-good night. Three innings, 59 pitches, 33 strikes. 3 runs, 4 hits, 3 walks, 4 Ks. He allowed two homers (both to guys named Ruiz), and they were big, big homers. If you know the layout of the park, the first homer went over the Lazy River in right field, the second went over the Diamond Deck in left and out of the stadium.
- Simply put, Ragans didn’t throw a pitch over 91 mph last night, and he missed with some pitches in spots where dudes who throw 91 cannot miss. The first dinger was on a fastball left upper-middle to a lefty, the second on just a lollipop of a middle-middle hanging curve to a righty. Ragans was missing up and in throughout his brief stint and just seemed a little...fuzzy.
- Sam Hale hypothesized on Twitter that Ragans could be gassed, and it’s a theory I can totally buy into. Ragans is pitching significant innings for the first time since 2017 when he threw 57.1 IP for short-season Spokane. He’s currently at 75.1 and he’s spent a good chunk of the last two months pitching in Texas summer. And you know what? Coming off two TJs, showing that his left arm isn’t completely broken is really all he needed to do this season.
- That he’s posted decent numbers this year is a cherry on top, and if the Rangers opted to shut Ragans down right this very second (he’s only due for another start or two anyway), his 2021 would still be considered a huge success.
- I also have a conspiracy theory that Ragans’ warmup/bullpen session was thrown off by a fairly lengthy pregame presentation that he had to stand motionless for, but I have absolutely no way of knowing if that affected him in any way whatsoever. //adjusts Teddy Roosevelt-style tinfoil hat
- Here’s the first part of his bullpen sesh:
- That’s about it, pitching wise. It was a slow game with a lot of pitches thrown and Hever Bueno kind of had to eat one out of the bullpen late in the game, he allowed seven runs in the 8th and 9th before they had to turn to their third catcher to finish off the game on the mound.
- Sam Huff continues to hit the ball really, really hard. Hit a line-shot double at 113 mph off the bat that looked like it went through the third baseman’s glove.
- Also had a Davis Wendzel single off the bat at 102.
- Wendzel was at 3B last night and made a nice play that displayed both athleticism and balls-out hustle. Frisco relay throw from the outfield got away after a base hit and was set to roll all the way through the infield and into the home dugout. Wendzel, who was holding a baserunner at third, went full-on sprint to the ball at an angle and made a surprisingly graceful slide and snag a few feet in front of the rail to both keep the ball from rolling into the dugout and keep the Missions runner at third from sneaking home. The hair made it even more graceful-looking. Flowing. Saved a run, looked great doing it.
- Josh Smith is tiny, fast, and he doesn’t wear batting gloves. Also he almost killed the opposing pitcher with a 96-mph liner right back at the guy’s face. Dude was able to get his glove up and deflect it enough to protect himself but it rolled into centerfield for a single. Then Smith easily stole second base during the next AB. Fun!
- Jax Biggers had a nice seven-pitch at-bat where he fouled off two two-strike pitches before slamming a three-run jimmy jack to right-center. Defensively for Frisco in 2021 Biggers has appeared at shortstop, second, third, first, left field, right field, center field, and DH.
- Good time to sneak in one last RoughRiders game if you have the opportunity. Last home game on Sunday. School’s back and it might cool off a tiny bit this week (though the seats at Riders Field are almost always shady anyway, even at first pitch) and there was a pretty small crowd there last night, but Frisco has some good specials planned to close out the year and, yknow, some nice baseball ambiance.
- Final score from last night, 12-7. Cody Bradford on the mound tonight for Frisco.