Tillman's Gem Today

[justD]

From Jeff Zrebiec at Orioles Insider:

...In the Tides' 2-0 victory over Charlotte [today], Tillman pitched a complete-game, one-hit shutout.

He allowed just two baserunners in the 99-pitch masterpiece and both were Jordan Danks who singled and then walked. That was the extent of the Knights' offense. Tillman struck out five in the game.

I thought I'd read sometime last week that Griffin (I think) had told Chris that he should just relax for a while regarding outcomes, and just go back to working on that cutter-like pitch to add to his arsenal. If he's still having this kind of success while trying to master that, this is very encouraging IMO. Does anyone know if that approach to his triple-A tenure is still in effect?


Edit: Okay, I just found this thread from last Wednesday. Looks like he's definitely still working on it, and wow, pretty impressive results! Nice...

[Who's On 1st]

Nice game today!

I just don't know why he can't seem to get it together this year in the Bigs.

[Ohfan67]

How can he be so dominating at AAA at his age and look so bad in Baltimore?

[ThisIsOurHouse]

He's doing the whole Homer Bailey thing, where he dominates AAA but can't get it together at the bigs. He is not in AAA to get good results, I want to see an imporvement of stuff and command. He needs movement on his fastball and he needs to keep it low in the zone, if he does not do this then he will get punished at OPACY and AL East opponents.

[OhioOriole]

I'm told Tillman did throw some cutters and two-seam fastballs, two pitches he's been working on, and his cutter was pretty good.

Posted by Jeff Zrebiec

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/spor...tches_gem.html

OhioOriole

[QBsILLEST1]

How can he be so dominating at AAA at his age and look so bad in Baltimore?

Well, one reason is that it seems that his stuff wasn't good in his recent 2 starts. When you have such a small sample size, things like that can have a major effect. Reportedly, he was looking like his old self in his last start, this start I am not sure what his stuff looked like, but you'd assume it was looking good. I am still however not content with his amount of K's this year, but his work in progress cutter I am sure has something to do with that.....

[JTrea81]

Keep raising that trade value...

[Hank Scorpio]

If Tillman can get his two seamer to the point where he's comfortable with it, watch out. It'll make his circle change that much more effective b/c they typically have the same spin.

[eb45]

Like others I'm sure, I was more hoping that his cutter and 2-seamer looked good than that he didn't allow many runs. Apparently we got both, plus him going deep in the game and still looking good.

[olehippi]

This news actually has me a little excited about Tillman again. If he can master the 2-seamer and/or a cutter to go with his changeup, he could become dominant at the ML level, too.

[Ohfan67]

If you are talking about his stuff... I disagree with the premise, but fine.

If you are talking about results, you are talking about 12 starts last year as a 21 year old, and 4 starts this year at age 22.

Expecting some type of dominating consistency at the Major League level at these ages is hard to understand.

Huh? How can you disagree with the "premise"? He's dominated AAA and looked like a batting practice pitcher in Baltimore.

[Scrat1]

Keep raising that trade value...

The monomania continues.

[accinfo]

I believe in the guy, and see lots to like beyond his age and numbers in the Minors. I wish the O's, and Oriole fans (not necessarily you) were more willing to watch Tillman get an extended run of starts at the Major League level. Instead of looking at each of his starts, sit-back a bit and watch the starts in terms of months (or even a year or two) at a time. Basically where you sat back and looked for improvement and greater consistency month-to-month, and year-to-year.


Getting past all of that, we will continue to look for reports on his velocity / movement, and his fastball command. Will continue to look for reports on his use of the 2 seamer, and perhaps the cutter.

I agreed with everything you said in your post however I disagree that the Orioles can let him have starts as bad as he did the last one he had in the major leagues. When you are throwing only 88/89 when you know he can do better he was either aiming the ball, (which is what probably was happening), or he has an injury that he isn't admitting. He threw batting practice that evening. It would have been different if it was just a command issue. You could let him work that out but he was getting crushed. I wouldn't have had a problem of letting him work it out in the bullpen. Maybe he wouldn't have held back and figured it out. I think they felt they had to convince him that he needed to work on these other pitches to get major league hitters and they sent him down to do so. It also may have taken Tillman to get crushed like he did to listen to instruction. Some times 22 years old's who have had the success he had don't take criticism very well. Man I hope your faith in him proves 100% correct. I just think in this instance the Orioles are doing the right thing. I also don't think it hurts to have two of the better pitching prospects in baseball on the same AAA team kind of competing against each other for the big prize.

We as fans can't wait to get all these prospects up and hopefully doing well so we can get back to watching winning baseball. Unfortunately you can't just stick them all in the lineup and they will learn everything they need to be successful. Some will do better then others. It doesn't mean the ones who don't, won't eventually figure it out. It just maybe on a different time schedule. Patience is a virtue.

[Sports Guy]

65% of his pitches for strikes..10 ground outs...9 flyballs.

Would love to know how much he is missing bats.

[Frobby]

Huh? How can you disagree with the "premise"? He's dominated AAA and looked like a batting practice pitcher in Baltimore.

I don't agree he's looked like a BP pitcher in Baltimore. He's had two decent starts (5.2 IP, 2 ER and 6 IP, 2 ER) and two bad ones. Not much of an audition, in my opinion. The next time he is called up, the O's need to commit to him for a while instead of yanking him around like a yo-yo.