The Matt Bush Experiment - In Pictures

Last week while The Ghost Family was on vacation in Scottsdale, I negotiated two mornings off from kid duty to attend two Padres Arizona Summer League games.  (Seriously, my wife is awesome.  It cost me a day at the hotel spa for her, but it was a fair trade.  And, yes, we go to Scottsdale in June on vacation.  We like the heat, we like resorts that bring us booze at the pool, we like the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess and June is the only time of the year where staying there for a week doesn't require a second mortgage.)  These summer teams are essentially made up of guys that have been signed from Latin America and the few odd American kids that are trying to catch on.  If you're lucky, you might even manage to catch a game where, say, a former #1 overall draft pick is in the process of converting from SS to pitcher.  (More on Bush in a moment.)

The games are played at the Pads spring training facility in Peoria.  It's a huge complex of fields and admin offices.  About the only thing wrong with it is that we share it with our enemies to the north, the Mariners.  (I stood there looking at this first picture thinking, "This would be heaven for Jonny Dub.  And his cats.")

I went to Sunday's game against the Brewers and Tuesday's game against the A's.  Both games were at the Pads facility, played on one of the outer fields.  Maybe twenty people in attendance, mostly scouts and dorks like me.  There was also some USA Junior Olympic thing going on on the other fields.  Games are free if you don't mind the sweltering (but dry) heat - was close to 110 both days.  The complex is pretty cool - lots of fields, batting cages, pitching hills, stuff like that.  This time of year, everything is open, so I just kind of wandered around and made a nuisance of myself, bothering people with stupid questions.  (I snuck into the main stadium as well - they really should lock all the gates.)

A few notes on the games:

Tony Muser is the Pads manager and the assistant coaches are Manny Crespo and Dave Rajsich.  They are old school baseball guys - dry humor, lots of chatter, who really take their jobs seriously teaching the players.  I sat right next to the Pads dugout for both games so I could hear everything going on.  They really focus on all the basic stuff.  But they also try and get the raw kids to understand a lot of the minute details, as well.  Example - kid named Yefri Carvajal came up with a runner on 2nd and no outs.  He lifted a foul ball to right.  Runner tagged and moved to third.  Was pretty evident that Carvajal was disappointed in making an out.  Next batter flied out to center and the runner tagged from third and scored.  Rajsich immediately turned to Carvajal and said "You get half an RBI for that.  You did your job and moved him to third."  I love seeing stuff like that - it's that kind of coaching and nuance that you don't see in other sports and makes baseball different.

Colt Morton was the one guy (other than Bush - we're getting there, don't worry) who really impressed me.  He played 1B on Sunday, catcher on Tuesday and he's listed as a catcher on the roster.  He's a big lanky dude with a short swing.  Had two Sac Flies on Tuesday for 2 RBI and both times they were true sacrifices - his job was to put the ball in play and he did.  Behind the plate, he was even better.  Great handling of the pitchers.  At the end of the first in the A's game, after Euclides Viloria struck a guy out for the third out on a really slow looping curve, all of the guys were congratulating Viloria as he came to the bench.  Muser immediately grabbed Morton as he came off and said "That was a great pitch call, Mort.  Excellent job."  Morton is 25, so he's older than most of the other players on the roster, but I just liked watching him play.

The other guy that I saw that was of interest was Cooper Brannan.  When I heard Muser call into the dugout "Coop.  You ready?" and the player respond "Yes, sir." I knew it had to be Brannan.  Impossible not to root for the guy.  He's big, kinda bulky.  Throws hard - I'd guess high eighties - I didn't hear any numbers.  Motion is a little rough, but serviceable.  And unfortunately, he struggled.  Came in with the bases loaded, walked in a run, gave up a double, walked another guy, then gave up a triple and then walked a couple more. (Or something like that.  Regardless - he had a rough go.)  Pitches didn't have a lot of movement and the few that came in through the zone, the A's hitters smoked them.  I was really bummed for the guy.

Here's Muser going to pull Brannan.

So then they brought in Matt Bush to relieve Brannan.

The main reason I went to the games was because KT said last week that Bush was gonna pitch live in these games and I figured since I was there, I wanted to try and catch it.  He didn't throw on Sunday and I was disappointed.  But one of the scouts indicated that he thought we'd see him on Tuesday and he was right. (A couple of the scouts were able to fill in the blanks for me.  Scouts, by the way, are the coolest guys ever.  Friendly and know freaking everything.  Always sit by the guy wearing the hat, holding a notepad on his knees and with a cooler by his side.)

Bush entered in the bottom of the third for Brannan.  Bases loaded and two out.  And in my completely uninformed opinion, the Pads are doing absolutely the right thing in moving him to pitcher.

He was easily the hardest thrower I saw in the two games I watched.  I overheard one scout say that he's throwing in the low to mid nineties right now and if they can get him to smooth out his delivery, they think the velocity will jump even more.  

When he entered in the third, he struck out the guy on five pitches.  Just overpowered him.  The A's hitter never even got close.  (By the way, neither the Brewers nor the A's put the players' names on the back of the players' jerseys, so I had no clue who any of their players were.  The Pads, because they are so awesome, provided names on jerseys and I was able to score a roster from the guys doing the scoring.)

In the fourth he faced five batters.  He walked one - not terribly wild, just missing basically - gave up a single through the middle and struck out the side.  Nearly every hitter had trouble catching up to his pitches. Excellent command, lots of low strikes.   Seemed like he was mixing in a decent curve and I heard another scout say he's working on a changeup which I'd think would be brutal with his velocity.

The thing that struck me, though, was his demeanor.   Bush was all business.  As Brannan was struggling, Bush set himself apart from the dugout after getting loose, definitely getting focused.  When he took the mound, he was intimidating.  He's only 5'10" - he reminded me of Tom Gordon in stature - so he's not physically intimidating, but his attitude was.  No expression, worked exclusively from the stretch and just blew the ball by guys.  After each of the two innings, he walked off the field slowly - no attitude, no smile, just doing his job.  And doing it really damn well.  These, I believe, are the first photos of Bush against live hitting.  (I'm sure SI will be knocking down my door for the rights.)

It's only rookie ball - maybe even a notch lower than that - but it was impossible not to notice how good Bush was.  You could hear it in the murmurs among the scouts - he's got talent as a pitcher and he could be pretty good.  MLB good?  Who knows.  But seeing him just mow guys down is a lot better than seeing him hit .175 in A ball.

And, seriously.  If we don't organize a GLB field trip to spring training in '08, then we suck.