Cubs Minor League Wrap: July 25

Hope he can finish the year strong.

Good to see Jackson get a couple of hits. Szczur showing power — and I think more is still to be seen. Once he can get some rest in the offseason, I think his power can blossom to about 15-20 HR a season if everything falls into place.

I got the tweet seeing where he hit a leadoff HR, but then my phone died, so it was pretty sweet coming home to the 2-4 HR, 2B, BB game. Great, Great game. Solid game for Kirk. Also get DeVoss and Golden back soon please.

           Sincerely,
                    Boise stinks right now. Especially when Jung starts.

It. Was. Awesome. Waiting for the gates to open, I saw a guy standing alone listening to his iPod, and first thing I noticed was his shoes. Anyway, I tell my friend. Dude looks like an athlete. And he jokes yeah he’s probably playing. And then I started looking at him. Dude had a Cal hat, Vandy ID, looked like an athlete..anyone know who it was yet? Anyway so I go dude….I think that’s Shawon Dunston Jr..So he’s like no way and we talked about it for 20 minutes or so while Shawon talked on the phone, so we decided once he got off the phone I’d go ask him. So finally the gates open up, and I’m like dude..are you Shawon Dunston Jr..? And he smirked and said yeah man and we talked for a few minutes and I got his autograph. It was pretty sweet. Seemed like a really cool dude. Apparently him and Brett are good friends? Oh..I also got Brett, Colvin, LeMahieu, and Flaherty’s autographs. I racked up. I have some pretty funny stories about meeting them.

Now to the actual game…….
Jay Jackson actually looked pretty good. I like his motion and his stuff looked good though it looked like he was throwing more than pitching. Lots of fastballs. Not to mention Jay is a fly ball pitcher and RF and LF are 327 for HRs. Wasn’t his night. Although he got really unlucky. A Scott Moore error led to a 2 R HR in the 1st and another error by Castillo on a terrible throw to first after Jackson actually struck out the batter, which led to some more damage. And by the way.. When I say terrible throw. I mean terrible.

Welington Castillo left early with a hamstring injury, but stayed in after the initial injury. He grabbed at it after trying to beat a throw at first. He walked it off and wasn’t really limping, but they took him out after that bad throw I talked about above, and took him to the locker room. Oh he calls his own games, and looked pretty good blocking the plate on a throw at home.

Colvin looked bad on curves again. But I’m rooting for him. Definitely a solid guy.

Flaherty was cool and got pretty animated after a called third strike on him with the bases loaded. He battled hard in that AB though and was playing 2nd again. He looked solid there as well. His double was nice.

Now the main person I wanted to share about.. Brett Pretty Boy Jackson. Definitely better than the Friday night game I saw. He played like the two Smokies games I saw of him. I was really impressed, and it’s amazing how much more insight you get than just the boxscore. First really good thing. His first 4 ABs(he had 5) he worked the count to 3-1. The other one he got down 1-2 but got it 2-2 and didn’t K, hit a hard liner to the pitcher. His first AB was an error on the 2B that he still hustled and made a close call at first which he beat out, and then stole second shortly after. The second AB was again hit at the 2B this time fielded cleanly after a dive, but once again Brett beat it out for single this time. (I think he went to 3rd on the following play, after the pitcher tried to pick him off, that speed doing wonders) His 4th AB he went up there and got a bunt single. Again another close play at first. His attitude gHis 3rd AB was the sac fly. So he worked the count, and was fast.

Isn’t that 1 of 8 against the Sounds, part of a decimated farm system?

It would seem like he’s just about ready to return to a big league bullpen. Maybe the team will get a bit of a morale boost when he does.