This kid is gutsy!
Austin Bond is becoming a favorite of mine. Yesterday he hurled a 5-hit shutout (striking out 8 batters) of the dangerous Baltimore Lords lineup while getting very little run support from his teammates.
Bond himself got one of the seven Brewer hits in the game and with a slim lead going in to the 9th inning he finished things up by getting Baltimore third baseman Luis Rodriguez to hit a harmless grounder to short, and then struck out the Lords best hitter, Robert Mustard (.336/.374/.517) and finally potential future Hall of Famer and 2-time MGL MVP Chris Tobin (.291/.354/.488), watched the first pitch of his at-bat swoosh by for strike one, fouled off the second pitch, and was called out on strikes on the third pitch to end the game.
Antonio Acuna saw a 19-game hit streak end in this one and
Val Guzman led off the game with his 9th home run, which would turn out to be all that young Mr.
Bond would need to earn his 12th victory of the season (and, indeed, of his big league career.)
At some point in the near future I really do need to talk a bit about the growing stable of home-grown starting pitching prospects in the Brewers organization. Recently
Eric Maisch was upgraded by the experts to #6 on the WPK Top Prospects list and at age 20 he has been pitching at the AAA level and although his 9-10 win-loss mark might not indicate domination, he has a good 3.07 ERA, a very good 1.11 WHIP, 11.2 K/9 rate combined with a 2.8 BB/9, a FIP of 3.32 with a FIP- of 77, and a very reasonable BABIP of .290 (actually a bit high compared to his professional average in this category). In other words, he is another ace in waiting in the WPK organization and should be on the big league club in less than a month.
And I won't go into too many more details but suffice it to say that 1979 2nd round pick
Jose Corpeno has moved up to AA Nashville and is profiling as potentially a solid #2 rotation arm,
Stephen Brooks, who was the 1st round pick in '79 is faring a bit less well and after starting the season at single A he was demoted to short-season A Jersey City, but is considered the 44th best prospect in the WPK and profiles as at least a quality mid-rotation pitcher, and among the 4 pitchers the Brewers selected in the most recent draft in the first 2 rounds, 19-year old
Ryan Kim with his already advanced changeup and groundball profile is off to the best start and is seen as another strong #2 or #3 arm in the system. (And it seems very possible that between
Eric Fehrenbacher- the 1st round pick this year- 19-year old
Jim Evans- taken in the supplemental 1st round and off to a great start in Rookie ball- and durable 21-year old 5-pitch collegiate hurler
Jim McKnight- the other 2nd round pick this year- at least one, if not more than one, will end up being solid big league starters.)
When you combine that with
Jim Atwell (selected by the Brewers in the 5th round of the 1975 draft),
Bryant Cox (7th round of that same draft), and
Austin Bond (2nd round pick in 1977), it is starting to look like the Brewers could have a completely home-grown rotation of great quality in just a few short seasons from now.