POSTGAME NOTES: “I do think we drifted mentally, and that shouldn’t happen.” | Giants Extra

San Francisco Giants No.6 prospect Heath Hembree

Great, now Bochy is talking like he's Dr. Phil!!

I guess you don't want to bring Hembree up too early and mess with his delicate psyche, but let's face it. If he has a delicate psyche, he's never going to amount to much as a closer.

A "solid three-pitch mix" sounds more like a prerequisite for a starting pitcher than a reliever.

I prefer my closer's scouting report to read more like "dominating one-pitch mix that he will throw at any time, any location and get outs. No fears. No doubts, No prisoners taken. Here it is. Hit it if you can." O.K. two pitches tops.

Times a wasting boys. Let's see if this dog can hunt.

from Giants Extra:
POSTGAME NOTES: “I do think we drifted mentally, and that shouldn’t happen.” | Giants Extra:

— From everything I’m hearing, sounds like Heath Hembree will be here next month. Hembree has a 1.50 ERA in July and August and is said to finally have a solid three-pitch mix working. He has always had the big fastball, but the slider and changeup have come a long way. Speaking of minor league pitchers, this is good work from the Giant Potential blog. Mejia is part of a very, very deep rotation in San Jose.

'via Blog this'


from Giants Potential Blog:
http://jim.biola.edu/~connerp/wordpress/fresno-notes-late-june-2013/#more-1392

According to the all-knowing Chris Kutz, Hembree has been struggling with a new pitch he’s implementing: a slider. Up until this year, Hembree has been mostly a fastball/changeup guy, but Hembree and pitching coach Pat Rice have been working a slider to add to the hard-throwing righty’s repertoire

As you may be able to tell from the above video, Hembree’s fastball is electric, and Kutz says it’s improved in velocity since 2012, sitting in the mid-90s and reaching 98. Though Chukchansi Park’s radar gun was (and is always) very spotty that night, all the guys in the press box vouched that based on reports from the entire season, Hembree was throwing anywhere from 93 to 97 last Friday.

But the slider is definitely a work in progress, and Kutz says it has accounted for some of Hembree’s worst outings, including a June 17 shellacking. Hembree went to the mound against the Salt Lake Bees to work on his slider, and threw far more of that breaking pitch than he’d ever thrown in what Kutz says was an attempt to see how it worked in a game situation.