It seems like so very many years ago when a young fireballing Harry Lyerly took the WPK world by storm, winning the MGL Harris/Lee (then known as the Pitcher of the Year) award in 1970 at the tender age of 22 as a member of the Denver Brewers. The concern with Lyerly was always his propensity to give up the long ball as there was never any doubt about his dominant stuff, hitting triple digits in velocity often at that age. And while he would string together 6 plus mostly good (and at times great) seasons for the Brewers, his manifest weaknesses did eventually catch up to him. Since age 28 he has been in and out of the big leagues, mostly throwing his elite fastball by AAA hitters during those years. Now age 35, Harry is still humbling much younger minor league batters with his nasty stuff, even if he has lost a bit of velocity over the years. Yesterday he showed the world once again just how dominant he can be on occasion, hurling a 2-hit shutout as a member of the Philadelphia Mud Hens' AAA affiliate, the Louisville Mud Hens. Lyerly struck out 13 young overwhelmed batters while walking just one.
Meanwhile, the Denver Brewers got another excellent start from 26-year old left-handed starting pitcher
Austin Bond who improves to 5-0 with a 1.96 ERA. In what has been a mostly disappointing early season for the Brewers, and with two of the three aces of the staff-
Sadahige Kawasaki and
Eric Maisch- on the 60-day IL and with neither expected back until very late in the season, if at all this year, and with the third ace,
Jim Atwell, off to a 1-3, 5.04 start,
Bond is the biggest bright spot in the rotation thus far.
Bond did go 19-6 in his rookie season of 1980 and when healthy has been quite solid since, but before the season nobody would have predicted that more than a month into the season he would look like the staff ace.