The 44th overall pick in the 2008 draft, Jeremy Bleich is set to make his Double-A debut tonight in Erie, Pennsylvania for the Trenton Thunder.
Trentonian colleague Josh Norris and myself caught up with Bleich outside of the Thunder clubhouse recently, and here’s how the brief Q&A went.
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You must be pretty excited to get the call-up to Double-A…
Bleich: “Yeah, it’s definitely an opportunity. We’ve got a good organization, so it’s definitely a good opportunity.”
Are you surprised you moved so fast?
Bleich: “I don’t know. I’ve been learning a lot down in High-A in Tampa. Greg Pavlik down there is a real good pitching coach, and all the coaches down there are real solid. I just tried to learn from my bad outings, learn from my good outings. I wouldn’t call it a surprise, I just think that I got my work in and learned from the things I needed to learn from.”
Can you give us a little scouting report on what you throw?
Bleich: “Left-hander. High 80′s, low 90′s fastball. I also throw a changeup and a curveball.”
Which pitch needs the most work and which has been your best?
Bleich: “I think I need to improve on all of them. At times, they all show to be pretty good pitches, but I think the name of the game is consistency. I just need to be more consistent with my pitches and location, just fine-tune everything.”
How were things going for you down in Tampa?
Bleich: “Things were going well. I started out all right and then struggled a little bit, I had a couple bad outings. Then I got on a roll for a little bit, but then fell back off for a couple and things didn’t go my way a little bit. I’d made some bad pitches. And then I got on a roll again, but each of those times I got on a roll, I kind of tried to learn from what had bitten me in the past. So I’m happy with the way it went and I just try to get better every day.”
So how big of an adjustment do you think it’s going to be from there to here?
Bleich: “The quality of play, I’m sure, is much higher. I’m sure it’s a big step. But at the same time, I just have to kind of focus on what I do and try to pitch the same and do my thing.”
Mike Ashmore, mashmore98 AT gmail.com
