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New York Times
22-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
How a lawyer heeded one Pat Summitt tenet to become Tennessee's winningest coach
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Even inside the opulent owner's suite at Covenant Health Park, there is only so much to do before a rain-delayed minor league baseball game on a Tuesday night. The Tennessee softball team already has discussed the ceremonial first pitch — someone suggested a pickoff throw — and rehearsed how record-breaking ace Karlyn Pickens can avoid an awkward hug with the Knoxville Smokies' mascot. They annihilated a food spread featuring sliders, hot dogs and chocolate chip cookies in about eight minutes. They took a group photo with team owner Randy Boyd, who's also the president of the University of Tennessee system. He was not, however, their most entertaining visitor. Advertisement At one point, a clubhouse attendant arrived with a delivery: A Columbus Clingstones player wrote his phone number on a baseball and sent it up to Lady Vols pitcher Charli Orsini. (She has a boyfriend and the Clingstone is hitting .160. It's a strikeout.) After all this, it's only 7:38 p.m., and the actual first pitch remains a distant hope. Boredom looms. So two Lady Vols decide to record a TikTok. And they invite their head coach to join. There was a time when Karen Weekly, sandpaper-tough former litigator, would've been galled by gyrations for social media's sake. This was before Tennessee's coach fought off disillusionment and recommitted herself to enjoying the job as much as doing the job. To remember what tugged her out of a law practice in the first place and to imbue that into her teams. Here and now, after two takes of a TikTok session and three days before an NCAA Tournament regional, a 61-year-old coach and her players are in lockstep. 'You gotta get a little hip into it,' Weekly says, and the third try is a keeper. College softball teams that win and have fun are not outliers. Silliness is native to the sport. But the Tennessee Lady Volunteers are in a third straight Super Regional particularly because they keep it light when things get heavy, which also happens to be the approach that allowed a star right-hander to punch her way out of a shell and throw a softball faster than any human in history. The program's first national championship is doable as a result, so long as the Lady Vols don't know any better. 'Our best games,' Pickens says, 'it was like we didn't even realize that the other team was there.' As Karen Kvale saw it, there were two paths out of the cul-de-sac in Edmonds, Wash.: professional basketball player or Supreme Court justice. Neither seemed unreasonable. She spent hours wearing out her driveway hoop with her sisters, spent many a night at Seattle SuperSonics games and, most critically, her parents never dissuaded her from the idea that there could be an NBA roster spot for her down the line. Advertisement As for the latter ambition, well, there was a pretty regimented sense of right and wrong in the Kvale household; to this day, instead of shortcutting to her parking spot over the grass outside the softball complex, Karen Weekly takes the long way because she can hear her father, Chuck, saying that's what sidewalks are for. Reading 'The Brethren' in early adolescence just cinched it. Written by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, the first-ever inside account of the Supreme Court fascinated her. These were the ultimate arbiters of justice. The last line of the problem-solvers. She became a softball All-American and three-year basketball starter at NAIA Pacific Lutheran University, and then law school at the University of Washington beckoned. She didn't love it. 'I'm thinking, am I really never going to be on a basketball court or a softball field again?' Weekly says now. Still, there would be no quitting. Another Kvale rule: You finish what you start. Besides, her mother had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when Karen was 8. Ruthann Kvale nevertheless resolved to climb to the top row of the stands at sporting events. She wasn't going to let anyone block her view of her girls. Lesson well learned. 'I refuse to take no for an answer,' Karen Weekly says. 'I refuse to believe there's not a way to figure something out.' Summer clerkships offset the drudgery of law school, and a housesitting gig in Tacoma provided free lodging plus the opportunity to volunteer with Pacific Lutheran softball in her spare time. A relationship meanwhile began with Ralph Weekly, then the Pacific Lutheran head coach, and the pair married in 1994. Soon after, Tennessee-Chattanooga offered Ralph the chance to run its nascent Division I softball program. For Karen Weekly, whose childhood vacations involved driving across the western United States and Canada in a Volkswagen bus pulling a tent trailer, this sounded like a cool adventure. And she declared they'd leave after a year if she hated it, anyway. She did not. In less than two years, she went from a job at a Chattanooga firm to teaching a course called Legal Environment of Business and spending her down time at the softball diamond. 'When people say, you went to law school and now you don't even use that, I'm like, oh, you'd be surprised,' Weekly says now. 'Just the way you're taught to think critically and take a bunch of information and figure out, OK, what's the important stuff? And then how do you come up with a strategy based upon all this information?' Advertisement When Ralph Weekly temporarily relocated to Oklahoma City to act as the director of USA Softball's national teams in 1998, Karen Weekly took over the Chattanooga program solo, twice winning Southern Conference Coach of the Year honors. It wasn't pro basketball. It wasn't a long black robe and a seat inside the chamber at 1 First St. in Washington, D.C. It was, however, a convergence she long pursued: a home at the intersection of law, teaching and competition, owned exclusively by Karen Weekly. Then Tennessee called in 2001. It aimed to hire Ralph and Karen Weekly as co-head coaches. No professorships. No moonlighting. Just softball. 'It was never about my ego, but it was like, (teaching law) is my thing,' Karen Weekly says. 'He doesn't have anything to say about it. He doesn't get to say anything about it. He doesn't know anything about it. That's mine. And now I'm going to turn my back on that and jump into what's been his world, and he's considered one of the best at it. That was kind of hard.' The next 20 years nevertheless comprised 949 wins, 16 NCAA Tournament appearances, seven Women's College World Series berths and a new stadium built in 2008 to boot. If there was a division of household duties, so to speak, Karen Weekly leaned into instruction and player development while leaving most bigger-picture responsibilities to her husband. She was, in essence, still a teacher. Still able to do her thing, or at least a version of it she could accept. She was the substance, former Tennessee women's athletics director Joan Cronan liked to joke, to Ralph's style. Under the circumstances, it tracked. The daughter of a generous and pragmatic father who worked for the Internal Revenue Service and a mother who wore a suit of armor over a devastating diagnosis. The attorney trained to parse details and win arguments. The co-head coach who didn't mind calling pitches behind a dugout fence. Karen Weekly might've been comfortable wrapped in some armor, too, even if it kept as much in as it kept out. Then something didn't feel quite right anymore. Not for a couple seasons before Ralph retired at age 78 in 2021. 'I was kind of disenchanted,' she says now. Seasons ended without personal fulfillment. Unease lingered even in 2022, when Karen Weekly first occupied the top of the Lady Vols org chart by herself. 'I don't want to say she was trying to feel it out – but you could just tell it was different to her,' says outfielder Katie Taylor, a freshman on that squad. When Tennessee was eliminated as a regional host for the second straight year in '22, Weekly was sure the school wouldn't stand for much more of that. That thought brought her back to Tacoma, and the reason she stayed at a house 40 miles from law school classes so she could hang around a softball field for nothing. 'It made me think, how do I want to coach?' Weekly says. 'And 2023 was probably the first year I really, truly was like, we are going to be joyful. If this is it, I want everybody in this program to feel like they enjoyed their experience this year.' A Pop-A-Shot machine has appeared on the sideline of the indoor field at the Anderson Training Center. The theory is that football renovations forced its temporary relocation. Tennessee's softball team, also relocated to this space due to heavy rains, cannot resist its lure. As the start of practice nears, two Lady Vols grab mini-basketballs. They retreat to a spot a good 15 yards from the rims. They are set to launch. But they can't. Advertisement The head coach is shooting. Four days earlier, Tennessee began the SEC tournament with a double-bye into the quarterfinals. It ended the SEC tournament there, too, blowing up late in a 6-1 loss to Arkansas. That made it five losses in eight games for a team that spent a week ranked No. 1 in the country in April. And a day after the NCAA Tournament bracket is revealed, there is a one-woman singalong to 'Purple Rain' courtesy of center fielder Kinsey Fiedler during hitting groups. There is a debate about the difference in pickle flavor before a team meeting. There is a Hall of Fame coach getting (tiny) buckets before practice and, by the end of live defense and baserunning reps, freshman Amayah Doyle jumping and screaming in front of All-SEC catcher Sophia Nugent, who can't keep a straight face as she threatens retribution. 'If everyone's uptight and worried about failing, it just creates a lot of stress and a lot of pressure that we don't need,' says All-American Taylor Pannell, who leads the Lady Vols in OPS (1.269) and RBIs (62). 'We're playing free. And it's just way more fun to be here.' To be clear, a program that has hosted 20 consecutive NCAA Tournament regionals does not run on laughing gas. There is prudence, juris- or otherwise, in Tennessee's bones. Practice revolves around class schedules, not vice versa. The Lady Vols are also an unofficial book club, reading selected motivational texts and sharing reflections in small groups and with the team as a whole. ('The Twin Thieves' is the current selection.) They've watched Kobe Bryant clips to provide a north star for ruthlessness on the playing field. BEST, MOST AGGRESSIVE SELF is painted on one wall of the batting cages. When the leadership council established team rules for the 2024-25 cycle, the head coach lawyered the verbiage. 'She's like, 'Well, you can't have a gray area, because what about this? You have to think about this. How do you phrase that?'' Fiedler recalls. Conversations with Weekly aren't cross-examinations, but they can involve a lot of questions. 'I feel like with lawyers, they're always going to find a way to get what they want,' Taylor says. And what should annoy a self-described rule-follower — that softball action, sometimes, resembles downed power wires thrashing about in a hurricane — is in fact what the former attorney at the top loves the most about the game: an endless cascade of problems to solve. 'She loves when things go wrong,' senior McKenna Gibson says. 'It actually brings me more sanity because I know that if our head coach isn't stressed about something that's going on, then there's no need for the player to, I guess?' Advertisement Still, this latest trip to a Super Regional series with Nebraska is inarguably part of a rebalancing act. 'I never, ever thought you'd hear me say, 'We need to have fun,'' Weekly says now. The first manifestation of it, or at least the one veteran Lady Vols remember, is Weekly's reaction to a seven-run sixth inning and a comeback win over Florida in April 2023. Following a quick chat with her staff, she balls her fists and screams as she gallops full-speed into the middle of a mosh pit of players. Having caught her breath, Weekly then tells her team she'll be smiling all night long. A fad, it was not. The coach who once frowned upon loony home run celebrations is OK with players donning a 'Mommy' hat and strutting in the dugout through a storm of fake money. In the team meeting at the top of NCAA Tournament week, Weekly rolls a montage of the Lady Vols hollering and smiling and acting generally unhinged during games. 'It just screams, 'We're doing this because we get to do this,'' Weekly says from the side of the screen. She has referred to her job as C.R.O. — Chief Reminding Officer — and the concept of feeling excitement and joy, no matter the result, is crucial for a team that had six freshmen and sophomores in the starting lineup of a regional final win over Ohio State. 'She says this a lot: She'd rather say 'whoa' than 'go,'' Fiedler says. It's the ethos that unlocked a paradigm-shifter in the circle. In January, on a conference room wall that's essentially a giant whiteboard, each Tennessee player illustrated what qualities they wanted to bring to the season. Karlyn Pickens drew a flame. Around it, she wrote 'Fire & PASSION.' For someone who has pitched since she was 8 years old, who probably could've been a Division I athlete in three sports, the spark hadn't come as naturally as one might expect. 'I had those moments in high school and travel ball where I would get pumped up, but when I got to college, it was kind of an adjustment period of like, 'Wow, these hitters are the best in the country,'' Pickens says. 'Not that I wasn't confident. But I was still kind of figuring (it) out.' As a freshman, the Lady Vols' 6-foot-1 phenom was all muted body language. A strikeout might get a fist pump. Maybe. So Pickens had a talk with her head coach, who assured Pickens there was nothing wrong with celebrating how much she loved playing. Advertisement 'She flipped the switch on perspective,' Weekly says, 'and you see what you have now.' It's cumulatively 44 wins, a 1.01 ERA and 477 strikeouts in 374 ⅔ innings (and counting) over the last two seasons, both of which ended with Pickens as the SEC pitcher of the year. Game day texts from her father, Phillip, almost inevitably focus on joy and energy and ferocity and, these days, nearly every whiff is followed by Pickens leaving her feet and screaming. The walls are down. Any invisible weight is dropped. There is a straight line between that and what transpired on March 24, in the sixth inning of a game against Arkansas, when Pickens slung a 1-1 fastball across the plate at 78.2 miles per hour. No one, ever, has thrown a softball faster. KARLYN PICKENS SETS THE RECORD FOR THE FASTEST PITCH IN COLLEGE SOFTBALL HISTORY 🔥🤯 78.2 MPH#NCAASoftball x 🎥 SECN / @Vol_Softball — NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) March 25, 2025 'When I realized that I didn't have to please other people, that I could just go and do my thing,' Pickens says, 'it made me 10 times a better athlete, and I think that was a turning point for my confidence.' Should a return to the Women's College World Series manifest, the genesis of all that heat merits as much attention as the heat itself. You never know, though. Someone eventually will hit 80 miles per hour. And Karlyn Pickens doesn't rule out being that someone. 'I won't say no,' is her official stance, and she's smiling when she says it. Few people would stand in more profound awe of Pat Summitt than a former basketball nut who coached anything at Tennessee. So it was with Karen Weekly. And so it was that she and her husband all but sprinted to Summitt's office after the legendary hoops coach asked them to visit a couple years into their tenure. She shared an observation: When Lady Vols softball players circled up, they weren't touching. Physical connection is important, Summitt said. It's why her teams touched feet in huddles. And there was Tennessee softball in a circle after practice, three days before the 2025 NCAA Tournament, standing cleat-to-cleat. Advertisement And there was Karen Weekly, addressing the team with 1,122 wins at Tennessee to that point. More than any coach has amassed there, in any sport, Pat Summitt (1,098) included. This comes up in her office a few minutes later. Karen Weekly reacts like someone shoved a knife into her rib cage. 'Please, please, no — please don't even talk about that,' she says. 'I know it bothers my boss. She's like, 'No, but you have accomplished lots.' OK, yeah, but it's still apples and oranges. We're not coaching the same sport. If Pat had 56 to 70 opportunities to win every year, she'd have set a number here that nobody would ever touch.' But Weekly and Tennessee are there, and beyond. And they might not be, at least not together, without a choice she made a few years back. A choice that heeded four words near the bottom of a list showcased in a conference room next to an outsize image of her idol. It's Pat Summitt's 'Definite Dozen' system of success. The 11th entry is as follows: Change is a must. 'If I'm going to try to convince my kids to surrender the outcome and to compete with joy,' Weekly says, 'they needed to see me doing it, not just talking about it.' Not long ago, Karen Weekly bought herself a Porsche. She'd promised herself one for a while, because she likes to go fast. But she never followed through. The urge hit the speed bump of practicality. Now, though, she is the proud owner of a yellow two-seater with merely 1,200 miles on the odometer. She didn't have to have it. But she gets to. (Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Courtesy of the University of Tennessee)
New York Times
19-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Astros' Colton Gordon delivered pizzas while rehabbing. Now, he's fighting for a rotation spot
HOUSTON — Clematis Pizza operates on the busiest street of downtown West Palm Beach, Fla., the spring training home of the Houston Astros and permanent residence for their rehabbing minor-league pitchers. Those recovering from reconstructive surgery sometimes stay at the South Florida complex for up to six months. Advertisement Colton Gordon could leave after four. He underwent Tommy John surgery a month before the Astros selected him in the eighth round of the 2021 draft. After signing his contract, Gordon arrived in Florida for a foreseeable future filled with little fanfare. Loneliness looms after almost all elbow surgeries. Days are interminable, devoid of the only thing any ballplayer dreams of doing. Meticulous muscle exercises or conditioning drills replace the bullpen sessions and simulated games often seen at a spring training complex. 'You get into autopilot mode very easy, just being isolated from the team and not being able to be around the guys every day,' said reliever Shawn Dubin, one of the injured pitchers Gordon met upon his arrival. 'You're kind of by yourself, for the most part.' Gordon does not do well with inactivity. He keeps a football in his locker and is fidgety by nature, always in search of something to pass the time. Dubin, Gordon and a slew of other injured Astros would visit the beach or the Worth Avenue Clock Tower to take their mind off such a monotonous routine. Gordon's rehab and physical therapy at the team's complex ended around noon each day. 'I'm not about to sit in a hotel room all day and just waste away time,' Gordon thought. So, one afternoon, Gordon walked into Clematis Pizza with a proposition. Low on cash, full of free time and with a functioning Ford F-150, he sought a side hustle — but he made sure the bosses understood his conditions. 'I'll let you know up front, I only got four months,' Gordon told them, 'but I'd love to deliver pizzas.' Gordon got the job and gained some perspective. Driving around his new home allowed him to get acquainted with the city, but also offered an outlet to forget about the reason he lived there in the first place. 'It just gets yourself away for a little bit of the day,' Gordon said. 'Do something that wasn't going to take away from baseball by any means, but also not just sit there and run around in (my) head of what I wanted to do. Obviously, I wanted to be playing ball.' Advertisement Five years later, with the luxury of a six-figure salary, Gordon's wish is granted. He will return to South Florida for his second major-league start on Monday against the Tampa Bay Rays at Steinbrenner Field, a homecoming for a St. Petersburg native who navigated the road back from reconstructive elbow surgery. Gordon injured himself during his redshirt sophomore season at the University of Central Florida, the third school of his four-year college career. That he sustained it in May only heightened concern about Gordon's stock in the following month's draft. Enough pitch data and performance existed from Gordon's prior two collegiate seasons to make the Astros comfortable selecting him in the eighth round. Gordon showed up to one of the team's pre-draft workouts wearing a full arm brace, but boasting the same infectious personality that's become common in every clubhouse he's entered. 'He's one of the most unique, funny guys I've ever met,' Dubin said. 'But when it comes time to lock in, he's tunnel vision.' Gordon's fastball and strike-throwing ability piqued the Astros' interest, as did the possibility of signing him at a discount following surgery. Bear in mind, Houston selected high school outfielder Tyler Whitaker with its first selection and signed him for more than double the pick's assigned slot value. Gordon's $127,500 signing bonus was $47,500 less than his slot value. Delivering pizzas didn't cover the difference. Gordon doesn't remember what the pizzeria paid him, but the tips he accrued in one of the nation's wealthier cities left a lasting memory. Security guards working a party outside a mansion gave him $100 for delivering 10 pepperoni pizzas. 'At the time I was like 'Damn, that was awesome,'' Gordon said. Gordon delivered food for about five hours most nights, sometimes sneaking in a pre-shift nap following his arm rehab. At the end of most nights, the restaurant allowed Gordon to take slices and some other entrees home free of charge. His review? Advertisement 'Fire. Really, really good,' he said. 'I've been around guys in the minors before, and they had to get jobs on the side, but I never thought I'd be doing it. It worked out, man. It was fun.' Being a major leaguer is far more enjoyable, a fact Gordon has confirmed across his first six days in the show. He surrendered three runs across 4 1/3 innings during his major-league debut last week, getting the club deep enough to stabilize its six-man rotation during a stretch of 17 games without an off day. 'The thing that excited me the most was his ability to pitch with the fastball,' general manager Dana Brown told the team's pregame radio show on Sunday. 'He's got the crossfire because he (pitches) across his body, it adds a little deception. He was able to pound that fastball in. I'm hoping he can use the fastball a little bit more.' Gordon's repertoire includes two types of fastballs and four secondary pitches, but is predicated on pinpoint command and pitchability. Gordon walked just 2.8 batters per nine in 123 ⅓ innings at Triple-A Sugar Land last season. His aggression in the strike zone impressed team officials during his debut last week, even with an arsenal that did not miss many bats. The whirlwind of Gordon's call-up and debut only started to slow down on Saturday, he said, but he's still learning some lessons. He walked out for a bullpen session on Friday afternoon with his weighted balls inside a plastic bag from the Astros' team store. On Saturday, he graduated to a team-issued duffel bag. Gordon's importance grew with Sunday's revelation that pitcher Hayden Wesneski will receive Tommy John surgery. His start on Monday could double as an audition to remain in the Astros' rotation when it shrinks to five, especially if the club is more interested in using Ryan Gusto as a swing man until Spencer Arrighetti is ready to return from a fractured thumb. Advertisement Whatever the role, Gordon seems ready to relish it, recognizing the road he's traveled. 'When you work so hard for so long for something and you get to live it for a couple days, it's — I don't want to say mind-blowing — but it's just like 'Wow, this is it,'' Gordon said. 'There's a lot of appreciation with that.' 'It's what it's all about. It's The Show. I don't think I'll ever lose the appreciation for it.' (Photos: Thomas Shea / Imagn Images)
Daily Mail
14-05-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Fans horrified by baseball official's grotesque act after dog poops on the field
Fans were left horrified on Tuesday night after a baseball official's disgusting act. During a minor league game between the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers and Carolina Mudcats, the Cannon Ballers' 'bat dog' defecated on the field near home plate. A staffer at the minor league stadium was nearby to clean up the mess, but opted for a pretty shocking strategy. Rather than rushing to get some sort of bag or paper towel, he grabbed the poop with his bare hand as he pushed it onto some sort of notebook or clipboard. He then scurried off the field to get rid of the feces. Fans online were mortified after video of the incident surfaced to X. That's one hell of a shit (via @BallersBatDog) — Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 13, 2025 'Fire the guy who picked up s*** with his bare hands immediately,' one said. 'Picking up dog s*** with your bare hands is insane,' another added. 'Did he just bare hand it then touch the gate? Then probably everything else,' a third asked. And a fourth joked, 'Give him the brown glove award,' as they referenced baseball's Gold Glove award for the best fielders. The Cannon Ballers, a single-A affiliate of the White Sox, would win the game 3-0.
Washington Post
14-05-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
The Royals signed veteran Rich Hill to a minor league deal. They would be his 14th team if called up
HOUSTON — The Kansas City Royals are giving Rich Hill another chance to pitch in the big leagues. The Royals signed the 45-year-old left-hander to a minor league deal Tuesday, and he will report soon to the club's spring training facility in Surprise, Arizona. Once he gets up to speed, Hill likely will head to Triple-A Omaha and try to prove he can still help a major league ballclub with designs on contending for the postseason.
New York Times
12-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Minor league scouting notes on Ben Hess, Seaver King, Adrian Santana and more
I recently caught a handful of minor-league games featuring prospects at the High-A level from the Yankees, Rays, Orioles and Nationals organizations. Below are scouting reports on the most notable prospects I saw. The Yankees promoted George Lombard Jr., their top prospect still in the minors, from High-A Hudson Valley to Double-A Somerset right before he was scheduled to come play a series 10 minutes from my house in Wilmington, Del. And I took that personally. I still went to a few of the games this past week, though, as Hudson Valley has a trio of the Yankees' top pitching prospects. Advertisement Ben Hess was the Yankees' first-round pick in 2024 out of the University of Alabama, and he had his best and longest start of his pro career to date on Thursday night pitching for Hudson Valley at Wilmington, going 6 2/3 shutout innings and striking out nine. The first Wilmington batter reached via catcher's interference, and then Hess retired the next 17 batters, walking one in the sixth and allowing his first and only hit in the seventh. It was an unusual outing, as Hess was 89-92 mph with the fastball in the first inning, then dialed it up to 93-96 for the next four innings before tapering back to 90-93 in the sixth and seventh. He dominated the Blue Rocks primarily with the fastball, using a 73-78 mph curveball as his primary secondary pitch, throwing a handful of sliders and maybe three or four changeups. He filled the zone with strikes, especially with the fastball, consistent with what he's been doing most of the year to date. The curveball is at least an average pitch and the slider could be as well, but I'd like to see him use them more, and he's going to have to develop the changeup to get lefties out at higher levels. Right-hander Bryce Cunningham was the Yankees' second-round pick last year out of Vanderbilt, and so far this year he's been Hudson Valley's best starter, with 38 strikeouts and eight walks in 36 1/3 innings through Sunday's start. I caught the beginning of his Mother's Day outing, just to get a first glimpse, and through two innings he was 91-96 with a changeup that flashed plus, also showing a slider and a big-breaking 11/5 curveball. The fastball/changeup combo alone looked like it'd be enough to keep him as a starter; I just didn't see enough of the slider to say if it was an adequate third pitch. He raised his arm slot on the curveball, so while it had a huge break, hitters might pick that up out of his hand. The Red Sox drafted right-hander Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz in the fourth round in 2021, and then traded the native of Puerto Rico to the Yankees in December for catcher Carlos Narváez. Rodriguez-Cruz has taken a step forward, boosting his strikeout rate to 32 percent in High A this year from 24 percent in his brief time there in 2024. He showed a five-pitch mix in a four-inning outing for Hudson Valley on Saturday night, working 93-96 with big arm-side run, along with a curve, slider, and sweeper, with clear ability to spin the ball. He also showed an above-average split-change with good arm speed and some arm-side fade. The slider was plus at times, just inconsistent, and nothing was worse than average in the arsenal. Advertisement He had 40 command, though, and the delivery is very reliever-ish, with a high elbow in back and late pronation. That arm action doesn't usually lend itself to good breaking stuff, so perhaps Rodriguez-Cruz can buck the odds because he may end up with one or more plus breaking pitches. It's most likely he ends up in the bullpen, but the Yankees should give him every opportunity to start. Nationals left-handed pitching prospect Jake Bennett started for Wilmington in the Mother's Day game as part of his rehab from September 2023 Tommy John surgery, his first outing in High A after a pair of starts for Low-A Fredericksburg. Bennett was 92-95 in his outing with four pitches, including a changeup, a big two-plane curveball at 77-80, and a sweeper at 81-85. His command and control weren't great; he walked two in three innings and threw just 36 of 64 pitches for strikes (56 percent), similar to his previous outing (58 percent). It's not uncommon for guys on their way back from elbow surgery to need more time to get their command and control back, but the good news is at least his stuff is intact. I've seen a lot of Nationals 2024 first-round pick Seaver King's at-bats so far this year, and it hasn't been great, certainly not what I expected coming off a tremendous 2024 season that saw him go with the No. 10 pick in the draft and then hit well for Fredericksburg after he signed. He went 2-for-24 in the just-completed series against Hudson Valley, with six strikeouts, bringing his total on the season to 34 strikeouts in 119 PA (28.6 percent). His swing was off earlier in the year, and while it looks better now, I don't think he's gotten his timing back at all. He's always expanded the zone too much but made it work for him because he could hit pitches a little beyond the zone hard enough to make it count. Now he's expanding the zone and not seeing results there, or even in the zone, where I've seen him mistime a lot of fastballs he should wallop. I'm not giving up, not after just a month, but this isn't what I expected or wanted to see. Catcher Caleb Lomavita, whom the Nats took with the comp-round pick (No. 39) they got from Kansas City right before last year's draft in the Hunter Harvey trade, has been better, hitting .277/.371/.376 so far this year, although the high OBP is a function of eight HBPs so far — he has been hit by pitches more times than he's walked (seven). He's not catching as well as I expected based on his reputation as a plus receiver in college. His arm is good, and he's definitely a great athlete for a catcher. It's something to monitor, though. And he could stand to take a pitch every now and then. I saw Orioles right-hander Trey Gibson pitch for High-A Aberdeen a little over a week ago, and it was his best outing of 2025 to date, with 10 strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings. Gibson was 94-97 with a hammer slider up to 86, a cutter, and a handful of changeups. He's been much more effective this year against left-handed batters, even though he's still mostly fastball/slider against them; the slider breaks more vertically, and it's so sharp that at least for now it misses bats regardless of who's at the plate. Outside of that one outing, his line for the rest of the season so far is 19 1/3 innings, 23 hits, nine walks, and 23 strikeouts, allowing 21 runs in that span, so I'm not going to just overrate what I saw in that one outing. It was pretty darn good, though, and at the very least I could see him becoming a very good two-pitch reliever. Advertisement Aidan Smith was the guy I most wanted to see for High-A Bowling Green, but he was a late scratch that day — between when I left the house and the first pitch. Rays 2023 comp. round pick (No. 31) Adrian Santana led off and had a terrible night, bouncing multiple throws from shortstop and striking out three times along with two weak groundouts. Émmanuel Pitre, Tampa's second-rounder in 2024, also struck out three times for Bowling Green, fanning twice on cutters from Gibson. Outfielder Mac Horvath, acquired from the Orioles last August for Zach Eflin, got to Gibson for a long home run on a 96-mph heater, walking twice and striking out looking on three straight sliders (yes, all looking). Horvath's been on a tear of late, with seven homers in his last 11 games, and probably should move up to Double A since he's 23 and is repeating High A. The power is real, and he's got ball/strike recognition, but if pitchers can land off-speed stuff in the zone he has real trouble. I'd challenge him at the next level to see if pitchers there can force him to make the adjustment. (Top photo of Hess: Tony Farlow / Four Seam Images via Associated Press)
