Atlanta Braves: Jason Hursh 3-Start Review

Feb 23, 2015; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; Atlanta Braves pitcher Jason Hursh fields a ground ball during spring training workouts at Champion Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

Overall Review – 18 1/3 IP, 21 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 17 K

Hursh isn’t a guy that will blow you away coming off the bus at 6’3 and a bit over 200 pounds. One thing I noticed in the first Pensacola outing is that on his sinkers, he finishes very straight to the plate, but on his breaking pitches, he often falls toward the first base side, which would be a pretty easy tell for hitters. Hursh does get good extension in front of himself on the mound, which would make the pitch play up in velocity.

Many guys miss too low with their breaking stuff, and with a sinker being the primary pitch, that’s where you need to miss, but Hursh’s misses are almost always up in the zone, which is why he’s been tattooed this year. Hursh pitches to contact, and defense has certainly been an issue at all levels of the Braves minors this year, but he’ll struggle if he continues to walk over 5 guys per 9, which he was doing before these starts. Keeping extra guys off base is very important for a guy who isn’t striking out a ton of guys.

Hursh’s repertoire is pretty straight forward with a sinking fastball, change up, slider, and a looping 12-6 curve. From my viewing, the curve isn’t a true swing and miss pitch, but it is very hard to get good contact on the pitch, and it has very good late break, so it’s not the type of 12-6 that hangs up for “tee shots” for a hitter to pound. The slider, on the other hand, has a proclivity to hang up and in the zone. Nearly every miss with his slider in the starts I watched was belt or above right in the middle of the plate. That’s the type of ball that does get driven, and the hardest balls hit in the Jacksonville game were all sliders.

The change up is where Hursh could go from good to great. He didn’t use the pitch a lot, but it was quite effective when he did use it. Once again, as with many of Hursh’s offerings, it’s more of a contact pitch than a swing and miss pitch, but it really threw off hitters, and even threw me off in the first game with Mississippi’s poor camera angle not really letting me see the pitch flight and not noticing at all when he was throwing a sinker or a change up, which is a very good thing for the success of the pitch. If they’re getting weak contact on the sinker, change, and curve, that could be enough to give Hursh a long career at the back end of a rotation.

The third start was a poor camera angle to see pitch movement, but I was impressed by Hursh’s location throughout the game. He did miss with his slider high, but in general, he was at the belt or below for all but about 10 of his 95 pitches in the game. Hursh didn’t eclipse 100 pitches in any of the starts, and the biggest take away is that he only walked 2 in 18 1/3 innings pitched. Hursh will always give up hits, especially with more poor defense in the minors (Peterson and Simmons up the middle would have meant at least 3 less hits on Wednesday, for instance), but as long as he can keep the walks low, this can be the guy we were excited for before the season.

One more tidbit from M-Braves radio man Kyle Tait to finish this up: