C-Notes 2046.05 - Fuentes en Fuego

[GoldenOne]

The Charlotte Cougars are getting a nice little surprise early in the 2046 season. SP Héctor Fuentes, who was brought over from Wichita/El Paso following the 2044 season in exchange for SS Jeremy Webb, is giving the Cougars Front Office something to think about as 2045 first round draft pick SP Thomas Turner and SP Ashton Brooks are about to come off the IL. Originally brought up at the beginning of the season to fill in for the injured starters, and expected to be sent back down to AAA Richmond to continue his development, Fuentes is making a case for someone else to head back to Richmond.

The left-handed Fuentes is 6-1 in his 7 starts so far this season, with a 2.53 ERA and a WHIP of 1.24. While not a high strikeout guy he has 24 strikeouts to 17 walks in his 42.2 innings so far this season, he has managed to keep batted balls in the park, only giving up 5 HRs. Fuentes is doing extremely well against left-handed batters keeping them to a paltry .186/.250/.356, which would suit anyone well with the lefty-heavy JL Atlantic lineups. A couple of other factors that are certainly helping Fuentes out are the .238 BABIP batters have against him this season, though his groundball rate is below 50% (currently at 49%), combined with the 5.7 runs per game his team is supporting him with.

Having only thrown a combined 33 games in both AA and AAA, Fuentes is certainly making his case to continue on in the black and white Cougars uniform as Turner and Brooks return from the IL in the coming weeks. Perhaps a 6-man rotation is in the calling to ease up on everyone's innings? But will that keep everyone fresh enough? Perhaps a trade of one of these starters is also in the works? It sure will be fun to see what happens as the Cougars continue to pursue their first-ever playoff appearance.

[usnspecialist]

This is what we like to call "a good problem to have".

[GoldenOne]

This is what we like to call "a good problem to have".

If I could only set up a 7-man rotation..... Turner and Smallwood hopefully only need a couple of starts before they can come up. Then Brooks should be off the IL. Trying to trade some of this excess pitching but nobody seems very interested.

[shoeless.db]

Gotta love those damn crafty lefties.