Two of the Braves’ top three pitching prospects made their spring-training debuts Saturday, and both Mike Soroka and Kyle Wright came away pleased overall with their performances, despite admittedly feeling some initial nervousness.
That was understandable considering it was the first Grapefruit League game for either, and it came against the defending World Series champion Astros, who played many of their lineup regulars in the early innings of a 6-1 win against the Braves at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches.
Soroka pitched the fourth inning and gave up a leadoff homer to Yuli Gurriel and hit the next batter before settling in and retiring the next three.
Wright followed him, pitching the fifth inning and allowing a leadoff single to Ryne Birk before getting the next three batters on a pop-up, strikeout and ground out.
“First and foremost, I felt pretty good,” said Soroka, who is only 20 and has risen to the No. 27 ranking in Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects entering the 2018 season. “Ball’s coming out nicely. Obviously the result – (Gurriel) hit the ball out – but you’ve got to look at the pitch and the pitch sequence. It was one that, when I was throwing it, I knew if I located it down and away like it was supposed to be, it’s more than likely going to be a strikeout.”
Soroka threw him a 2-2 slider that he left over the plate, and Gurriel pounced on the mistake pitch and pounded it out, a line-drive home run. Soroka gave up only 13 homers in 50 starts over the past two seasons in the minors, including 10 in 153-2/3 innings last season at Double-A Mississippi, where he had a 2.75 ERA and 125 strikeouts with 34 walks.
“Might be just a little amped up and not getting around it properly,” Soroka said of the pitch to Gurriel. “When it happened, you realize pitches like that are going to get hit. Whether they get hit out or not they’re going to get hit hard, especially at that level. But other than that, I regrouped pretty well and hit my spots for the most part.”
Soroka hit the next batter, Jon Kemmer, with a two-seam fastball (sinker) that Kemmer didn’t try hard to avoid.
“Even the one I got the hit-by-pitch on, with two strikes, we set up and in,” said Soroka, a well-spoken right-hander who was a first-round draft pick out of a Canadian high school in 2015. “It’s well known that if I’m coming in up there, I expect to miss in. I’m not missing over the plate with that pitch, especially against a lefty. Really it wasn’t even that bad a pitch.”
Braves manager Brian Snitker thought Soroka had a good first outing and a learning experience.
“You’re going to find that two-strike breaking balls have to have a little depth to them,” Snitker said. “If you throw those ones for strikes these guys will hit them. That’s not a bad thing, to face those hitters. I can tell he’s an aggressive kid, because after the homer he’s right back in there. He’s in the zone, and it’s OK.”
Wright, the Braves’ first-round draft pick (fifth overall) in June out of Vanderbilt University, made a combined nine starts last season for rookie-league Danville and high Single-A Florida. And here he was Saturday facing the Astros, albeit with the likes of Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Evan Gattis and Brian McCann out of the game by the time he entered it.
“Coming in, it was a little intimidating,” Wright said. “But at the end of the day it’s baseball, it’s the same game for as long as I’ve been playing it. Just got to play the shirt, don’t look too deep into it. ... It felt good just to kind of get in there, get your feet wet. First spring training game so it was kind of a cool experience. It felt good to kind of get out there and start knocking the rust off.”
After Birk greeted him with a single to start the fifth inning, Wright retired the next three batters including a strikeout of Garrett Stubbs.
Snitker had praised Wright before the game for his professionalism and said he and legendary former Braves manager Bobby Cox said the same thing when they watched Wright throw a live batting practice session a few days ago: That the 22-year-old right-hander looks like a big-leaguer now.
“I felt a little out of synch at times, but for the most part everything felt good.” Wright said. “I felt like I was making good pitches for the most part. Definitely something to build off, but I feel good right now.”
