Last Night in Fredericksburg
With the longest outing of his career, Jackson Rutledge pitched Fredericksburg to a 6-1 win over Salem – the third straight win for the FredNats and opened up a 6½ game lead in C.L. North Division.
Perhaps more importantly, it was just what the 23-y.o. needed after an eight-run beating at the wings of the Shorebirds, one of the league’s lesser offenses, on with an eight-inning outing against one of the league’s best lineups.
For those of you who lust for velocity, Rutledge touched 98 mph a couple of times and was within the zone, too. But it was his two-seam fastball and what appeared to be a cutter where he really made strides last night.
After a 10-pitch 1st, Rutledge struggled in the 2nd and 3rd innings. He needed 17 pitches to work around an error and was visibly shaken when 2-2 pitch wasn’t called for a strike, issuing a walk instead.
In the 3rd, he ran into trouble when a one-out single and a stolen base put the tying run in scoring position. After getting his fourth whiff he was burned by Blaze Jordan for a two-out single to tie the game at 1-1.
The FredNats rallied for five in the bottom of the 4th, highlighted by Sammy Infante scampering home from second base on a wild pitch and Jacob Young’s two-out RBI single. Despite having sat for a while, Rutledge responded with a 1-2-3 top of the 5th with three ground balls on just ten pitches.
Salem got to him for leadoff singles in the 6th and 8th frames but the Red Sox ran themselves out of any chance of a comeback with a caught stealing in the former and an ill-informed attempt to stretch a single into a double in the latter, which actually seemed to energize Rutledge.
He would finish with one run let in on four hits, two walks, and seven strikeouts. He threw 91 pitches, 61 for strikes as he won his fourth game.
Young, Infante, and Branden Boisserie each had two hits to power the FredNats’ nine-hit, four-walk offense.
The two teams will finish the series this afternoon with a rematch of the series opener’s pitchers: Andry Lara and Winkelman Gonzalez.
good analysis.
Hanrahan came out in the second after the borderline call went against him to calm him down. he’s had similar situations blow up on him in the past.
like Denaburg, Rutledge has barely pitched over the last three years, things look rocky at times and dazzling at times. Luke nailed it on his cutter/two seamer, it has nice run and sink and he gets a lot of ground balls.
if he gets a late season bump to A+ and an early season bump to AA next year he’ll be right on track for 2024. considering the injuries that delayed his development I think his future is 3-4 starter sometime in 2024.
FredMD
Remembering your comment prior , I think Kr changed many minds of fans last night .
Me included
And Fred has their middle of lineup masher in line
Unfortunately, even though I can see both the live action and the multitude of camera angles in the press box, it’s not the same as being behind home plate to see pitch movement, how the catcher sets up — what the hell was up with the Salem catcher still doing one knee with runners on base? — and so forth.
I don’t lust for power, just glad he actually looked like a prospect this time.
He’s going to have to show this same success this year at High A to stay in the conversation.
Thanks for the report. What can you tell me about Infante? I don’t know what to make of him – lots of tools who got signed to a big bonus.
He’s coming along… anybody drafted in 2020 is an outlier no matter how you spin it. Everybody but Cavalli and Henry would have gone much lower than they did in a “normal” year (we’re still trying to figure out what that means with just two drafts of the 20-round variety to work with).
The 800-pound gorilla of a question is whether Rutledge and Denaburg will be added to the 40-man in the coming offseason to protect them from the Rule 5 draft. Personally, I wouldn’t protect guys who currently are four levels from the majors, but YMMV.
No chance either is added to the 40 man roster unless there are open spots which can’t be filled.