Mehring in AZ: Day 4 - Pretty Close

My final day at minor league camp in Arizona coincided with a brief day, but it was illuminating as to a possible Wisconsin Timber Rattlers roster.

The first part of the day featured all of the players on the minor league side of Brewers camp - from Colorado Springs to Wisconsin - stretching out and doing a few defensive drills.

After that was done, two games were held. The Colorado Springs Sky Sox faced the Biloxi Shuckers on one of the back diamonds. The game I focused on was the Timber Rattlers against the Brevard County Manatees.

I talked with Matt Erickson about the game and how close the lineup he used for it was to the actual opening day roster for the Timber Rattlers. You can hear the entire interview over on Rattler Radio, but to condense his answer to two words; those words would be "pretty close".

You can see the lineup card (minus pitchers) in this tweet. But, to spell it out for you here:

Troy Stokes - LF (20)
Isan Diaz - SS (19)
Monte Harrison - CF (20)
Tuckey Neuhaus - 2B (20)
Elvis Rubio - RF (21)
David Denson - DH (21)
Luis Aviles - 3B (21)
Alan Sharkey - 1B (22)
Dustin Houle - C

Brandon Woodruff - SP

BENCH:
Jake Gatewood (IF)
Sthervin Matos (IF)
Carlos Belonis (OF)
Mitch Gelfi   (C)
Natanael Mejia (C)

The batteries in this game were switched around. Marcos Diplan was the starting pitcher and Max McDowell was the catcher for Brevard County. They both are most likely to end up with Wisconsin, but were with the Manatees today because the player development people wanted Diplan to face the level of hitters he will in the regular season. McDowell caught him because they wanted Diplan to keep throwing to someone he will be in the regular season.

Erickson expands on the "pretty close" point from earlier, "McDowell is probably going to be our opening day [catcher]. Infield was very, very similar to what I think we might throw out there. Outfield was also similar, maybe Belonis, who's a guy that didn't play today, he's also in the mix in the outfield. We'll see how we match up that particular day and who [the Beloit Snappers] got on the mound [on April 7], but you'll see a lot of those faces that were on the field today."

"On the pitching side it's pretty much set," Erickson said. "We have, I think, two spots and we have four or five guys still competing for that spot and hopefully they stay healthy and it comes down to who deserves to be there."

Erickson is going to focus on between now and the break of camp to get the lineup ready. "For the next four days as we go through these games, I'll try to mix them up, try to get everybody some at bats, and we'll try to break as fresh as we possibly can physically."

"I'm excited," said Erickson. "I'm excited about the potential of the overall team. We're going to be athletic. We're going to be young like we were last year, but we're going to be young with a little bit of Midwest League experience. 

"Last year we threw out a bunch of teenagers and I think I was kidding when I said that we had the most talented High School baseball team in Appleton. We're going to bring the junior college team up there this year with a little experience," he continued.

I took out Houle and put in McDowell from the starting lineup, added the ages of those nine, and got an average age of 20.67 years old. That would be a young Junior College team.

"I think guys like Harrison and Neuhaus and Gatewood and Sharkey and Denson has some experience in the league," said Erickson. "McDowell is a catcher. Gehlfi is a possible catcher to come with us and they all have some college time. Belonis is a name that's going to be new to the league, but he went to the steps: He came from the Dominican League, went through the Arizona League, and went through Helena. I think he'll be a little better prepared than obviously some of those kids that came out of high school last year."

The Timber Rattlers won the game 5-2 and they jumped on Diplan with two runs in the first, one run in the second, and two more in the third. Monte Harrison did most of the damage with an RBI double down the third base line in the first and an RBI single up the middle in the third.

"Harrison is the guy that's standing out right now," said Erickson. "He's looking good and feeling comfortable in the box. He's healthy. He's getting himself in position to recognize pitches and he's not letting many hittable fastballs without doing some damage."

A funny moment from the top of the fifth inning involved Harrison. There were two outs and a runner at first base and he was on deck. The decision was made to end the inning there instead of letting Harrison get a chance for his third hit. He was disappointed and I could've sworn I heard him say, "Come on!" In other word, he really wanted to hit again.

"He's a guy that has been swinging the bat pretty good for the last couple weeks," Erickson said. "He seems to be in a pretty good place and anytime you get a hitter feeling good about it and you take at bats away they're not real happy about it."

"Hopefully we keep him healthy and keep him going for the next couple weeks and he can remember what he's doing here," Erickson continued. "He's got a nice, controlled aggressiveness to his swing."

Neuhaus, who had two doubles in the game, added an RBI double in the first. Sharkey had an RBI single in the second. Rubio added an RBI single in the third.

McDowell had a part in both Brevard County runs in the game. He doubled to drive in Taylor Brennan in the third and scored on an Omar Garcia RBI grounder.

"I'm excited about the youth, the overall physical talent that we have, and also some of that experience that was gained last year with a core group of guys," Erickson repeated before expanding on his point. "Obviously it's something that's a responsibility of myself, the staff, and the team together [on] 'How consistent can we be? Can we keep improving?'," he concluded.

And so ends my reporting from Arizona this year. I want to take a moment to say thank you to a few people.

Rob Zerjav, the team president of the Timber Rattlers, for sending me down here to cover the team before they arrive in Appleton.

Ken Spindler and Zach Weber from the Brewers media relations department for helping to get me credentials to cover the team and pointing me in the right direction when I needed to be.

The Timber Rattlers staff of Matt Erickson, Chuckie Caufield, Gary Lucas, Al LeBouef, Jeff Paxson, and Ben Mendelson for answering my questions and helping me out.

Thank you, too. If you weren't interested in Timber Rattlers baseball and Milwaukee Brewers prospects, I wouldn't be able to come down here for this. I hope that you got something out of these reports and that you are able to make a trip to the Fox Cities for plenty of Timber Rattlers games in 2016.

This is going to be a fun season.