The Tulsa Trio has become the Oklahoma Uno. Baseball America checks in once again.
Cody Bellinger left his Tulsa teammates behind but didn’t forget his bat. In his first AAA game for the Oklahoma Dodgers, Bellinger blasted two home runs.
Baseball America Prospect notes took notice of Bellinger and De Leon:
Cody Bellinger, 1b, Dodgers. Bellinger, the Dodgers’ No. 1 prospect at midseason, made his first Triple-A start one to remember. The powerful lefty swinger cracked two homers Sunday in Oklahoma City’s 8-1 win over Omaha. Bellinger, who slashed 263/.359/.484 with 23 homers in Double-A, is a plus defender at first base with plus power. He has hit seven homers in his past 11 games overall.
Jose De Leon, rhp, Dodgers. The Dodgers’ No. 2 prospect at midseason—he’d have been No. 1 if not for first-half injuries—De Leon was impressive Sunday in his big league debut. He used his fastball and plus changeup to strike out nine Padres in a 7-4 win. De Leon walked none and allowed four runs in six innings. De Leon’s fastball can get to 95 mph, but it sits 92-93 and he spots it well for swings and misses.
Julio Urias moving up the strikeout leaderboard for baseball season 19 or younger
On July 21st, Julio Urias broke Joe Moellers fifty-four-year-old record for LAD strikeouts for a teenager by fanning four in his 7/21/16 start giving him 48 compared to Joe’s 46. Since that time Julio Urias has struck out another 28 giving him 76 for the season and is now tied with Don Gullet for 8th place among National League teenagers in strikeouts after 1958. Urias is 12th overall.
As you can see, Urias also holds the 2nd highest SO9 rate of any teenager since the LAD came into existence in 1958. Just Dwight Gooden and the infamous Rick Ankiel have fanned hitters at a better rate then Julio.
As great as all these teenagers were, you don’t see any hall of fame pitchers here. Gooden didn’t fall victim to arm issues but to drugs. Gary Nolan had a massive bone spur, and the story about that will turn your gut when you see how disposable baseball felt about their greatest assets. Joe Posnanki details how Frank Jobe saved Gary Nolan’s career.
He was 18 years old when he made his first start in the big leagues — he and Feller are the only two pitchers in baseball history to strike out 10 or more big league batters in a game before they turned 19 years old.
“Pitchers have to throw with pain,” his Reds manager Sparky Anderson told him. “Bob Gibson says every pitch he’s ever thrown cut him like a knife. You gotta pitch with pain, kid.”
Larry Dierker threw 1250 major league innings by the age of 23. Mike McCormick would win a Cy Young at age 28 in 1967 for the Giants but he was never really more than an average pitcher. Ray Sadecki became famous for getting traded from the Cardinals to the Giants for Orland Cepeda in 1966. Cepeda would lead the Cardinals to the 1967 World Championship while winning the MVP and eventually hit his way into the HOF.
The AL is kinder to teenagers with HOF Bert Blyleven and Catfish Hunter in the top ten. King Felix is represented at 11 and I’d think he has a good shot at the HOF.
Here is the complete list of teenagers from 1958 on who struck out at least 40 hitters:
Below are just the NL pitchers with 50 K’s before the age of 20 from 1958.
| Player | Year | Age | SO | SO9 | SO/W |
| Dwight Gooden | 1984 | 19 | 276 | 11.39 | 3.78 |
| Gary Nolan | 1967 | 19 | 206 | 8.18 | 3.32 |
| Larry Dierker | 1965 | 18 | 109 | 6.69 | 2.95 |
| Larry Dierker | 1966 | 19 | 108 | 5.2 | 2.4 |
| Ray Sadecki | 1960 | 19 | 95 | 5.43 | 1.1 |
| Billy McCool | 1964 | 19 | 87 | 8.76 | 3 |
| Mike McCormick | 1958 | 19 | 82 | 4.14 | 1.37 |
| Julio Urias | 2016 | 19 | 76 | 10.0 | 3.5 |
| Don Gullett | 1970 | 19 | 76 | 8.81 | 1.73 |
| Mike McQueen | 1970 | 19 | 54 | 7.36 | 1.74 |
| Joe Moeller | 1962 | 19 | 46 | 4.83 | 0.79 |
Jose De Leon strikes out 9 in debut, most in a Sept debut since Gagne in 1999
Jose De Leon struck out nine in his first major league start, making it the 3rd best strikeout debut by a LAD. Only Kaz Ishii and Pedro Astacio did better when they struck out ten in their respective debuts. Ishii did it on April 4th, 2002, and Astacio did it on July 3rd, 1992.
For De Leon this was the best strikeout performance for a LAD in a Sept debut. Gagne struck out eight in 1999.
Only three LAD have ever struck out at least five and walked nobody in their debuts. Ryu in 2013 and long ago Pete Richert in 1962.
I’m also willing to be that Jose De Leon is the first LAD starter to debut by striking out the side in his last inning. He was only able to do so because Grandal got thrown out at 2nd to end the 5th before De Leon could be replaced.
Below is the list of all LAD with at least five strikeouts in their debut.
| Player | Date | IP | H | ER | BB | SO |
| Jose De Leon | 9/4/2016 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 9 |
| Brock Stewart | 6/29/2016 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 7 |
| Matt Magill | 4/27/2013 | 6.2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
| Hyun-Jin Ryu | 4/2/2013 | 6.1 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Nathan Eovaldi | 8/6/2011 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
| Clayton Kershaw | 5/25/2008 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| Kazuhisa Ishii | 4/6/2002 | 5.2 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 10 |
| Eric Gagne | 9/7/1999 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 8 |
| Dennys Reyes | 7/13/1997 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 6 |
| Hideo Nomo | 5/2/1995 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 7 |
| Pedro Astacio | 7/3/1992 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 10 |
| Terry Wells | 7/3/1990 | 6 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 6 |
| Ramon Martinez | 8/13/1988 | 7.2 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| Shawn Hillegas | 8/9/1987 | 8.2 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| Sid Fernandez | 9/20/1983 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Ricky Wright | 7/28/1982 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Geoff Zahn | 9/2/1973 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Don Sutton | 4/14/1966 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| Mike Kekich | 6/9/1965 | 3.1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| Larry Miller | 6/21/1964 | 6.1 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
| Nick Willhite | 6/16/1963 | 9 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| Pete Richert | 4/12/1962 | 3.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
It took a month but the deadline deal for Hill/Reddick is starting to pay dividends
Rich Hill’s blister and Josh Reddick’s month long slump were the subjects of humor and laughter in August but as the calendar turns to September the Dodger front office may get the last laugh.
Rich Hill did make one start in August, and it was a beauty, and he has followed that up with an even better second start. If the blister problems are behind him, a healthy Hill can beef up a Dodger rotation that looks to be adding the best pitcher in baseball later this coming week.
While a Kershaw/Maeda/Hill and somebody is not on the same level as Kershaw/Greinke/Ryu and Nolasco in 2013 or Kershaw/Greinke/Ryu/ in 2014 or Kershaw/Greinke/Brett Anderson in 2015, it is looking better than what it appeared to be four weeks ago which was Maeda/Kazmir and anybody’s guess.
Josh Reddick endured a horrible August but his luck has turned in September with a three-hit game on Saturday including his first Dodger home run. Josh actually had hits in the last two games of August and now sports a modest four-game hitting streak. I’ve always been one to view horrible slumps by good healthy players as a harbinger of an amazing streak to follow, so it won’t shock me if Josh Reddick’s September is one to marvel at during the winter.
Now that Puig is back the Dodgers right field option against either right or left handed pitchers just got much better as did the Dodgers chances to not only make the postseason for the fourth time in four years but to make some noise.
Jose De Leon finally gets his shot
No one thought back in March that the Dodgers number two pitching prospect Jose De Leon would be finally making his first major league start, long after Ross Stripling, Julio Urias, and Brock Stewart had made their’s, but his day has finally come.
De Leon has done everything he could do to get this opportunity with perhaps the biggest obstacle simply being too many good players on the Dodgers 40 man roster.
Fantastic indeed. In his 16 starts with the OKC Dodgers De Leon posted a 7-1 record and outstanding 2.61 ERA. But what stands out most about the 24-year-old Isabel, Puerto Rico native are his strikeouts. In his 86.1 innings of work the hard-throwing right-hander struck out 111 while walking only 20 for a Kershaw-like K/BB ratio of 5.55. He also struck out 10 or more batters in five of his 16 starts, including 13 punch outs in his last outing on August 28 against the Colorado Springs Sky Sox (Brewers). The extremely polite and soft-spoken right-hander also owns an alien-like WHIP of 0.94.
As Eric Stephen noted having four rookies making their debut in the same season is new territory for the LAD. It is officially five with Kenta Maeda but come on, no one really thinks of him as a rookie except the arcane major league baseball rookie rules.
No Dodgers team has had more than two such debuts since World War II, when the 1944 Brooklyn club saw starters Ben Chapman, Frank Wurm and John Wells make their debuts.
Including Maeda what is great to me about these five rookies is that all of them might have a real future in major league baseball. Julio Urias has the all the making of a future ace, Kenta has shown to be a fine number two, De Leon could be a number three, and Stripling / Stewart could easily round out the back end of any rotation.
It is simply the greatest collection of young arms on the Dodger roster in my memory. To jog my memory I’m going to have to do a series on rookie arms just to see how good/bad my memory is. Luckily I have the whole off-season to check it out.
In a bit of a surprise Edwin Rios named LAD Minor league Player of the Year
I think I’d have gone with Andrew Toles or Cody Bellinger or Willie Calhoun but Edwin Rios takes the big prize as LAD Minor League Player of the Year.
Brock Stewart takes the LAD Minor League pitcher of the year award over the competition of Jose DeLeon.
Rios combined to hit .303 with 68 runs, 25 doubles, two triples, 27 home runs and 75 RBI along with a .344 on-base percentage and a .576 slugging percentage in 103 games for Single-A Great Lakes, Single-A Rancho Cucamonga and Double-A Tulsa this season.
Rios is 22 years old and was drafted by the Dodgers in the 6th round of the 2015 draft.
Bellinger who just turned 21 hit 23 home runs while playing the whole season in AA ball. His ops were .851 and he was able to play the outfield and 1st base. Just seems like a more impressive season.
Willie Calhoun also hit 27 home runs playing the whole season in AA and won’t turn 22 until November. Willie did his damage as a 2nd baseman and was probably the best hitting 2nd baseman in all the minor leagues.
If you don’t know the Toles story you probably aren’t a Dodger fan. Toles started out in Rancho, tore them up, moved up to Tulsa, tore them up, moved up to Oklahoma, tore them up, moved up to the Dodgers, tore up the NL. He still had 323 minor leagues at bats which should have been enough to qualify him. His minor league totals was a .884 OPS.
Brock Stewart looks like a good choice since he was dominant all year while it took a while for Jose DeLeon to get going being shut down twice during the year.
Nothing like a bevy of good news to start a labor day weekend
Giants lose first game against the Cubs in their four-game series at Wrigley. The best part was losing to the weakest link the Cub rotation. Dodgers up by two with three against the Padres, while the Giants finish their four-game series in Chicago. Have to like the Dodger chances of being more than two games up by Sunday night.
Contrary to reports circulating after Puig was sent down that Puig would never wear the Dodger Blue again, he is being brought back up, and will be in uniform tonight.
Clayton Kershaw will be throwing a minor league game at Rancho this weekend as he tunes up for his most dynamic postseason run yet.
And best of all, the Dodgers have cut a deal with KTLA
The final six regular season television broadcasts of Vin Scully’s career can be watched by those in the Los Angeles market without SportsNet LA, as Charter has reached a deal to simulcast six games on KTLA.
On this day in baseball – Beltre hears the nutcracker suite – 09/01/2010
http://www.nationalpastime.com/
2007 – In his first game back from the DL after suffering a torn right testicle when a bad hop grounder hit him in the groin last month, Adrián Beltre hears the The Nutcracker Suite when he steps into the batter’s box. Mariner teammate Ken Griffey Jr. arranged to have the Safeco Field PA system play the waltz to have some fun with the third baseman, who decided not wear a protective cup until today’s game.
2008 – Adrian Beltre triples in the eighth inning off Rangers’ right-hander Josh Rupe to become the fourth player in franchise history, joining Jay Buhner (1993), Alex Rodriguez (1997), and John Olerud (2001), to hit for the cycle. The rare event is accomplished twice today as Diamondbacks shortstop Stephen Drew also collects a single, double, triple, and home run in a game against the Cardinals at Chase Field.
1969 – At Dodger Stadium, Willie Davis ties the franchise record by hitting in 29 consecutive games with his second-inning single in LA’s 10-6 victory over New York. The mark was established by Zack Wheat in 1916.
Willie would go on to hit in 31 straight games
1964 – Masanori Murakami becomes the first native-born Japanese player to appear in the U.S. major leagues when throws a scoreless eighth inning in the Giants’ 4-1 loss to the Mets at Shea Stadium. The 20 year-old southpaw, who was to play only minor league ball until June as an ‘exchange player’, will be allowed to stay and play in one full season with San Francisco next year, before returning to the Nankai Hawks, ending his brief American stint with a 5-1 record and an ERA of 3.75.
I had his baseball card, wish I still had it.
Time magazine did a story on him
In 1964, Murakami, a 20-year-old pitcher for the Nankai Hawks, was in America on a kind of cultural exchange program with the San Francisco Giants. He was called up from the Giants’ single-A team in Fresno on Aug. 30, joined the team in New York, and on Sept. 1 came in as a late-inning reliever for against the Mets at Shea Stadium. History was made.
LAD Grand Slams within their first 25 games
When Andrew Toles hit his momentous grand slam last night he did it in his 25th career game. Which left me wondering what other LAD have hit a grand slam in their first 25 games.
We all remember Yasiel Puig hitting his first grand slam in his 4th game.
Alex Guerrero did it in his 13th game on April 12th, 2015. Might have been the hit of the year.
Cody Ross had one of the strangest games in LAD rookie history. He hit two home runs including a grand slam and was traded eleven days later to the Reds.
Oh look , I fit a Bill Sudakis moment in here, what a shock. Billy hit his grand slam in his 7th game on Sept 8th, 1968
Now this was the biggest surprise to me. Norm Sherry did it in his 9th game on May 31st, 1960. I had no idea that Norm Sherry was a rookie in 1960. Wow, look at the career, one could say it very closely mirrors the career of one A.J. Ellis. I’ll have to look at that more later.
Last but not least, Frank Hondo Howard hit one on May 17th, 1960 in his 21st game. Frank Howard would be the only one of these rookies to go onto win the ROY award.
A quick spin around August games with Toles
Even though he was played sparingly Andrew Toles had an August that can sit next to Marlon Anderson’s 2006 Sept any day of the week.
Toles only got 20 at-bats because he didn’t come back until August 21st, but what he did with them was simply amazing.
4 singles, 3 doubles, 1 triple, 3 home runs, 12 RBI and a triple stat line of .550 / .583 / 1.250
Unfriggingbelievable – 12 RBI in 20 at-bats since August 21st
Yet he only started four games:
- August 21st – Starts, 1 for 3, one walk, Dodgers win 4 – 0
- August 22nd – Starts, 2 for 5, first major league home run, four RBI, Dodgers win 18 – 9
- August 23rd – Doesn’t start, gets in game in 6th inning, double, home run, 3 RBI, Dodgers win 9 – 5
- August 24th – pinch hit, nothing, Dodgers win 1 – 0, first time since he came up he does not help in the victory.
- August 26th – pinch hit, nothing, Dodgers lose 6 – 4
- August 27th – Starts, two hits, one double, Dodgers win 3 – 2
- August 28th – doesn’t start, pinch hits, gets HBP, scores winning run, Dodgers win 1 – 0
- August 29th – doesn’t start, pinch hits in 9th, hits a triple, scores only Dodger run, Dodgers lose 7 – 1
- August 31st – Starts, double off wall, walk, single, Boom Boom Slam gives Dodgers 10 -8 lead, drives in 5 runs. Dodgers win 10- 8
Toles only had five at bats against the Rockies in three games but still managed a Coors Cycle.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 