Randy Guzman has been a slugger for the St Lucie Mets.
So l glanced at a DSL Mets box score, and their starting pitcher fanned 6 in 3.2 scoreless innings. His name?
Randy Guzman. Different guy, same name.
Guzman is a common name. For instance, the Mets have a reliever named Carlos Guzman in AA who fanned 3 in 1.1 IP Friday night.
But two guys named RANDY Guzman?
What are the odds?
Anyway, Bashing Bo Bichette answered his detractors on Friday night against Hot Lanta, with 2 homers against Spencer Strider, totaling 6 RBIs for the evening. 8 HRs and 40 RBIs on the year. Soto cracked # 15.
Devin Williams was sharp with a save in the 7-5 win. Every Nets fan can remember blown Nets saves against the Braves over the years. Not tonight.
One pesky Braves batter fouled off about eight pitches and then singled, raising those “oh no, here we go again” worries, but Williams mowed thru the other 3 hitters, including a game ending K of Olson.
In the minors:
Syracuse was limited to 3 hits and one run in a loss. Nate Lavender lost in relief, but he sure strikes out lots of guys. On the stick side, Morabito and Senga each fanned 3 times, and Clifford slipped to .210.
In Binghamton, Suero (.191) and Lorusso (.212) each cracked their 10th of the season in a win in which the Rumblers scored 7 on 8 hits and 8 walks. In the other side,. Santucci was wild, but Bingo pitching racked up 15 Ks.
Brooklyn scored 13 runs on 10 hits. Houck is hitting well since June 2, and is up to .212. Mosquera got 2 RBIs and raised his average to .099 in Brooklyn.
Daviel Hurtado was excellent over 5 innings. The 21 year old has a 0.70 WHIP over 28 IP this year.
St Lucie won, 2-1.
Finally…
The FCL Mets got 4 hitless innings from young Camden Lohman. He fanned six and walked one.
10 comments:
The slugger Randy Guzman went on the 7 day IL a week ago. He is a 1B/OF. He has fanned 79 times in 77 career games (.285) for St Lucie in 2025 and 2026, with 37 XBH. My guess is they’d like him to cut the Ks a bit before they promote him to tough Brooklyn
Some critique Nolan McLean for a struggling outing.
Atlanta is 4th in runs scored. Struggles against a top tier offense are not unexpected, as much as we’d love him to throw a 3 hit shutout and fan 16. He was good enough. And that is good enough for me.
McLean is struggling with himself. Simply can't find the zone anymore consistently
McLean walked 94 guys in the minors in 226 innings. 3.75 per 9. Kind of high.
Against much better MLB hitters, he amps it up, affecting his precision. It will just be a gradual walk (and pitches per inning) reduction. Seaver was very good in 1967 and 1968 before he got great in 1969. We will have to wait a bit for McLean to go from good to great.
Set the expectations for McLean appropriately and you won't be disappointed. He is a top tier pitcher who does a good job game in and out, but is working his way through a couple of problems that a pitching coach should be able to help him with. He has to settle on a set of core pitches. You can't be throwing everything but the kitchen sink in the majors. It is not an experimental opportunity.
This is where analytics would be helpful as well. Lots of data on which pitches work when and in what sequence to which kinds of hitters. Focus on those and the plan for using them. Then he just has a couple of mechanical flaws, which I believe, are likely exaccerbated by the variety of pitches he throws. Get 3 main pitches and a 4th for special use. they must be effective and thrown with basically the same mechanics. too many pitch options, too much thinking, too much thinking, not enough reacting, too many delivery slots and marginally different mechanics, too little repeatability, etc. Optimize, optimize, optimize. Get confident and all planning occurs before the game not between pitches when there is no time to think let alone plan. Seems like he has a good head on his shoulders, don't crowd it. He was also a hitter, so he should be good at being reactive. Use those strengths!
Strider is obviously hurting. Bichette is finding his timing. That's great, but remember, that level of timing is knife's edge and will go from time to time, so I am not expecting linear let alone a hyperbolic progress.
I just look at Hefner and the job he's done with their pitching staff and Richardson at first base and Pete in Baltimore and wonder frankly who's really making the decisions for this mess? So their good enough for the Braves and not us and by the way Pete would look pretty good at first and he also plays every day how wonderful.
Nice to "see" the Mets hang on for one against the Braves. Of course I didn't see the game because I don't have Apple TV. I really hate the way teams have sold out to these streaming services for "exclusive" games. It robs the fan base of the pleasure of watching their team play.
100% Jules
I was wondering how I couldn’t find the game. Yes, this bifurcation out of greed sucks.
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