On July 29th, I saw Rudy Owens pitch for the first time during the 2010 season. I saw Owens pitch several times in 2009, and a few of those outings can be seen in the video recaps section of the site.
Owens was spectacular this time around, with excellent control and command of his pitches, pitching six innings, and allowing two runs on three hits, with one walk and nine strikeouts. Owens carried a no-hitter in to the fifth inning, before allowing a two out double, which would have been a bloop single, had it not been for the hustle of Richmond shortstop Ryan Lormand barely stretching the play out in to a double. Owens allowed an infield single in the sixth inning on a slow roller to shortstop, which set up his big mistake, a two run homer by Thomas Neal to put Richmond up 2-1 at the time.
Baseball America recently named Owens as the pitcher with the best control in AA, along with having the best changeup. The videos below show exactly why Owens was given this award. He was working 90-93 MPH with his fastball, and was extremely effective. I didn’t get the first inning, and missed some of the second inning due to some fans arriving late and blocking the video.
Check out my recap of the game here.
