Eastern League All-Star Game: 7/15/09

Yesterday Clyde and I attended the Eastern League All-Star Game at Waterfront Park in Trenton. After a lackluster Homerun Derby, the actual game was delightful, The Southern Division ended up winning 4-3.

Northern Division:

Rene Tosoni - Coming off a Futures Game appearance where he was awarded MVP honors over the weekend, Tosoni a disappointing game a the plate going 0-4 with a walk a run scored, and a strikeout.

Lars Anderson - Boston's top prospect played the second half of the game going 0-2 with a strikeout. He looked uncomfortable both in the Homerun derby (where he hit only 1 homerun) and during the game where he seemed off-balance a lot. He smoked a ball that would have been a double if not for an excellent defensive play by the center fielder.

Jesus Montero - Montero who was an injury replacement, played the second half of the game and showed that despite only being 19 years old he could handle the best that AA had to offer, going 2-2, with one of his hits being of the infield variety. He runs very well for his size and appears athletic. Unfortunately, he still looked very poor defensively, runners were a perfect 4-4 in stolen base attempts against him in only 4 innings behind the plate.

Most of his throwing problems seem to stem from a varying arm angle, sometimes he correctly cocks his arm behind his head before releasing the ball, generally resulting in a good throw. Other times he almost seems to wind-mill the ball to second base, usually resulting in the ball bouncing before it reaches the second baseman or flying into the outfield. I don't think his throwing troubles are due to lack of talent, just inconsistency.

Zach McAllister - The starter for the North, McAllister pitched 1 inning and gave up 1 hit. He seemed to command his pitches well, and breezed through the inning.

Southern Division:

Miguel Abreu - The All-Star Game MVP went 2-4 with 2 stolen bases and 2 runs. He ran very well and also got excellent jumps on his stolen bases He also made two nice defensive plays at second base. There have been some questions about his plate discipline and he's old for his level at age 24 but contact skills and speed could get him to the big leagues.

Carlos Santana - Santana went 0-1 and got hit by a pitch in his only two plate appearances of the game. He showed off some pop in the homerun derby hitting his only two homeruns well out of the stadium.

Nick Weglarz - Weglarz went 0-2 with a stolen base and fielder's choice. He showed off better speed than I expected; he will never much of a regular base stealing threat but he's certainly not a base-clogger.

Michael Taylor - The first thing I noticed about Taylor is that he's absolutely jacked, but despite all of his muscle mass, he still runs well--similar to Elijah Dukes. Taylor went 1-4 with a walk and a strikeout. He hit a long fly ball his first time up which brought the left fielder all the way back to the warning track.

Beau Mills - Of all of the players, I was most excited to see Mills who hit a monster shot last time he was in Trenton. It's a shame he wasn't in the Homerun Derby as I believe he would have won easily. Mills ended up going 1-4 with a walk and a strikeout, he was also caught stealing.

Joe Savery - The Southern Division starter matched his counterpart in McAllister giving up 1 hit over 1 inning. Unlike McAllister, Savery flashed a disgusting changeup a few difference times. His commanded appeared to be solid and his fastball looked strong.