Last Night In Woodbridge

With the threat of a suicide squeeze, the Winston-Salem infield had to play in with two outs in the 9th inning against Potomac leadoff man Billy Burns. The extra step or two in gave the speedy outfielder the margin he needed to shoot one past the Dash third baseman for a 2-1 walkoff win last night.

It was the fifth walkoff win, and the 50th win overall for the P-Nats this season, but almost an afterthought considering who the starting pitcher was.

The announced pitcher had been Ivan Pineyro, who had pitched last Thursday in a game suspended by rain. With four pitchers throwing in the interim, it was his turn in the rotation. To your right can see that that is not a righthander warming up but a lefty.

Starting a day earlier than what sources had said, was one Matthew Taylor Purke, the Nationals’ 3rd Round pick in the 2011 First-Year Player Draft.

It continues the Nationals’ pattern of minimizing the exposure and scrutiny of high-profile prospects (e.g. preventing Stephen Strasburg from starting in MD or VA, skipping Bryce Harper from Low-A to AA in 2011) as today is one of the few times the paid attendance listed in the Potomac box score will be closer to the number of people versus the number of limbs or bones.

With the caveat that you see in the header, here’s my scouting report on Purke’s first High-A start.

There’s an obsession with velocity nowadays. It’s invariably the first question I get asked via Twitter. Perhaps I’m feeding the beast, but the reports of low-to-mid-90s heat are true.

What struck me more was the movement on his pitches. Rare was the fastball that came in straight. More often was the heater that had what Ryan Kelley from Baseball Newshound described here as “spin…with razor-sharp slider movement.” The southpaw also unleashed a handful of both his slurve and the 11-5 curve, but stayed mostly with the fastball in the early going.

The command last night, however, was spotty. Purke ran up long counts to five of 22 batters faced, with 20+ pitch^* innings in the 1st and 5th. But let’s not forget who he was facing — Winston-Salem is the cream of the crop offensively in the Carolina League. They get some credit for working the count, too.

The lone run Purke gave up came in the 1st, on sacrifice fly following a triple to right-center that Justin Miller, a utility player, couldn’t track down. Had he gotten the next two out, the narrative might have been “well, with Caleb Ramsey or Randolph Oduber out there, they go scoreless” but he gave up a single and hit a batter so it’s not that simple.

The second inning was perhaps his best, even though most would say the fourth, in which he dispatched the 7-8-9 batters on less than 10 pitches. Winston-Salem got a break on an error by Cutter Dykstra and ambushed Purke on first-pitch fastball to put two runners on. The count went to 3-0 but Purke bore down to get it to 3-2 and got the first out on a grounder to short, then ran the next batter to 0-2 and got the double play on a grounder to second to escape further damage.

The third saw Purke get two quick outs then give up a single and a five-pitch walk before retiring the fifth batter on a flyout to center.

After the aforementioned 1-2-3 4th inning, Purke got the leadoff man in the 5th on three pitches but walked the second batter on six and needed more than seven pitches to put away Dash SS Chris Curley. He got the final batter on routine flyout to right to finish his night, roughly 70 pitches thrown over five innings with one run given up on four hits with two walks, two strikeouts, a wild pitch, and a hit batsmen.

All in all, a decent outing.