JUPITER—Day Five
Pitching Prevails for Braves Scout Team

BY ALLAN SIMPSON

JUPITER, Fla.—It was obvious that the Atlanta Braves Scout Team had winning a championship in mind when they showed up at the World Wood Bat Association Fall Championship with a roster that included 17 pitchers.

The Braves knew they’d need a deep pitching staff to win the 80-team event and, sure enough, they had three fresh arms on the mound with the title on the line as they defeated the Orlando Scorpions 4-3 here Monday behind the combined pitching of lefthander Austin Wright (Conant HS, Schaumburg, Ill.), righthander Austin Wood (Niceville, Fla. HS) and Blake Dieterich (West Orange HS, Orlando).

It was the Braves fifth win in 24 hours—and their eighth in four days. Yet no Braves pitcher worked in more than six innings in the tournament.

Wright worked the first four innings against the Scorpions, allowing a pair of first-inning runs but he settled down to pitch three scoreless innings before handing the game over to Wood, who worked the next two. Dieterich, who hails from Orlando and has played with and against many of the Scorpions players, came in to work the seventh and earned a save.

Though he wasn’t used at all in the tournament as a pitcher, tournament MVP Eric Hosmer (American Heritage HS, Pembroke Pines, Fla.) was warming up in the bullpen in the seventh inning—just in case his services were needed. Hosmer, a projected first-round pick in the 2008 draft as a power-hitting first baseman, went 10-for-21 with nine RBIs overall. But the 6-foot-4, 210-pound lefthander has always done his share of pitching in the past and has been clocked up to 93 mph. Second baseman Chris Amezquita (Servite HS, La Mirada, Calif.), who hit .400 as the Braves cleanup hitter, was also available to pitch.

The Braves ran the table in the tournament, winning all eight games they played—three in pool play and five in bracket play. They won a pair earlier Monday to reach the final. Overall, they allowed only 12 runs in the tournament.

Tom Battista, a Braves scout who was instrumental in assembling the team and served as a coach, was emphatic what the key was to his team’s success.

“Pitching,” he said. “And you can put a period after that. We had 17 power arms, giving us options in every game. You can’t possibly win a tournament like this unless you have a lot of pitching depth. But we also had a quality lineup that was capable of scoring runs and playing defense.”

The Braves overcame a 2-0, first-inning deficit in the final by scoring two runs of their own in the bottom of the first as Hosmer drove in a run with a base hit after singles by Brent Warren (Xavier HS, Cedar Rapids, Iowa) and Peter Verdin (Paul VI HS, Alexandria, Va). The second run of the inning scored on a bases-loaded walk.

The Braves snapped the 2-2 tie in the fourth on a double by Corey Black (Mission Bay HS, San Diego), a run-scoring single by Deven Marrero (American Heritage HS, Davie, Fla.) and a triple by Warren, who went 3-for-3 in the game.

While the Braves had the luxury of using a fresh arm at almost every turn, they went with virtually the same lineup in all three games Monday after losing Kyle Skipworth (Patriot HS, Riverside, Calif.), the nation’s top catching prospect, to a broken hand Sunday when he came out of his stance early and was clipped by the bat on a hitter’s follow through. The Braves were already short two position players because of injuries incurred just prior to the tournament, but fortunately had junior Tucker Barnhart (Brownsburg, Ind., HS), one of the top 2009 catching prospects, as a strong backup.

The Braves began play Monday with a 7-2 win over the Tri-State (N.J.) Arsenal in the quarter-finals as Hosmer homered in the fourth inning for the game’s first run and three pitchers combined on a three-hitter and struck out 12. Braves starter Gerrit Cole (Orange Lutheran HS, Santa Ana, Calif.), who was clocked at 97 mph in a one-inning stint on Friday night—the fastest record velocity in the tournament—reached 96 in working the first three innings, striking out four.

In the semi-finals, the Braves beat the Orioles Scout Team 5-1, scoring five runs in the first three innings against a team that had thrown shutouts in five of its six previous games.

Meanwhile, the Scorpions advanced to the championship game by beating the No. 1 seeded East Cobb (Ga.) Astros 2-0 in the semi-finals as righthander Anthony Figliola (Winter Springs, Fla., HS), the tournament’s co-Most Valuable Pitcher, blanked the Astros on three hits with no walks while striking out 10. His fastball, which was 89 mph most of the game, peaked at 91 in the sixth and seven innings. Figliola also struck out six in two innings in his previous tournament appearance.

He shared top pitcher honors with Astros lefthander Brett DeVall (Niceville, Fla., HS), who threw a three-hit shutout with no walks and 11 strikeouts earlier Monday as East Cobb beat the St. Louis Cardinals Scout Team 1-0 to advance to the semi-finals. Overall, DeVall went 2-0, 0.00 while striking out 17 in 10 innings.

This was the second straight year that a nationally-assembled scout team won the tournament. A year ago, it was the Reds Scout Team—a team assembled by Cincinnati’s Midland Redskins summer program—and it was no less a force than the Braves team. The common link between the two is that Hosmer was a member of both teams.

The Braves were a pre-tournament favorite this year as the team was assembled by Atlanta Braves scouts from top prospects throughout the country and included high-profile everyday players like Hosmer, Skipworth, Amezquita and third baseman Zack Cox—all projected early-round picks in the 2008 draft.

But for the purposes of this tournament, the real value for the Braves was found on the pitching staff.

DAY FOUR NOTEBOOK/Bracket Play
In stark contrast to players on the Braves Scout Team, who were recruited from all over the country to play in the WWBA tournament, all the Scorpions players are from the greater Orlando area . . . The Scorpions are coached by George Martin, who oddly enough is a scout in Florida for the Braves. Not only did he assemble his own roster, but he had a hand in identifying players for the Braves Scout Team—not knowing the two teams would ever meet in the final . . . Before surrendering five runs in the first three innings of their semi-final loss to the Braves Scout Team, the Orioles Scout Team pitching staff had given up just one run in its six previous tournament games. Lefthander Austin Stadler (James River HS, Midlothian, Va.) worked the first six innings of the Orioles’ fifth shutout, a 2-0 win over Chet Lemon’s Juice in the quarter-finals, and also drove in both his team’s runs with a fourth-inning single and a sixth-inning double. Prior to the loss, the No. 2 seeded Juice had spun five straight shutouts of their own . . . A consolation game Monday between the two Canadian teams in the tournament resulted in Team Ontario defeating Team British Columbia 5-1 . . . While Hosmer took home MVP honors, other players who were in the running were Orioles Scout Team shortstop Derrick Gibson (Seaford, Del., HS), who went 9-for-19 with three doubles and two triples; and Amezquita, who was 6-for-15 with six RBIs—four of which came on a game-winning grand slam in pool play.