Robert Stephenson: Baseball MLB Pitcher, Triple AAA
Gamespeed Training: Off Season Conditionng, Custom Training since 2009.Â
Still on the rise, Gamespeed’s Stephenson is getting control issues under “well control”. Says he’s feeling physically fit and excited about the direction he’s going.
Louisville right-hander overcomes hitters’ counts, walks just one
For a while there, it seemed like right-hander Robert Stephenson’s season was slipping away. Now he’s in Triple-A and seems to have a firmer — if not quite complete — grip on things.
The Reds’ top prospect shined in his second International League start Wednesday, tossing six scoreless innings for Louisville in a 3-2 win over Indianapolis.
The right-hander scattered four hits while striking out six and walking one. Over two starts with the Bats, he’s 2-0 with a 1.64 ERA.
Stephenson was promoted to Triple-A after making 14 starts for Double-A Pensacola this year. The first part of the season featured a few disastrous outings for the 22-year-old, including a two-start stretch in which he walked 11 batters over seven innings.
The 2011 first-round pick (27th overall) had a particularly tough time gripping his fastball early in the year, leading to control issues. He worked with Pensacola pitching coach Jeff Fassero to stay on top of the ball while sacrificing some velocity in exchange for command.
The adjustments have Stephenson trending in the right direction. After walking 6.7 batters per nine innings over his first eight outings, he has posted a 3.2 rate over his past eight starts.
Still, Stephenson said he struggled with that grip Wednesday. He fell behind each of the four batters he faced in the first inning and faced two 2-0 counts. He didn’t throw a first-pitch strike until the seventh batter of the game and managed first-pitch strikes to just eight of 22 batters.
“To be honest, I had a hard time again,” he said. “It’s pretty humid out here and the ball kept slipping out a little bit, so I think there’s some work to be done to get ahead in the
The ability to recover from those 1-0 and 2-0 counts marked a nice turnaround for Stephenson. While the control issues sabotaged entire outings earlier in the year, the only one Wednesday was a high pitch count — he threw 102 pitches over his six frames.
“I want to be able to go deeper into games,” he said. “I want to be able to go seven or eight innings. Obviously, the goal is to go out there and throw nine innings, but at this point, I’ll take six innings. Going out every single time, I want to be able to throw more innings, keep the pitch count down.
“I still need to work on throwing more strikes, but it’s definitely better than it was before. If I feel comfortable where I’m able to throw a lot of strikes, then maybe at some point, I’ll dial it up a bit. For right now, I’m just kind of easing back and making sure I’m throwing strikes and getting outs.”
Despite all the 1-0 counts, Stephenson faced just two over the minimum in the first four innings. In the fifth, Elias Diaz led off with a ground-ball single, but was caught stealing by catcher Ramon Cabrera. Stephenson then sandwiched a pair of strikeouts around Gift Ngoepe’s single to end the frame.
In the sixth, he struck out Pirates’ No. 7 prospect Alen Hanson, then worked around a single by Jose Tabata with a flyout and a groundout.
