A trip to Cedar Rapids: Final thoughts

I had intended to start writing about the major league team again, but after watching more errant throws and misplays Thursday night than I saw in three games of low A ball, I don't really want to.

So, a couple followup comments and notes:

Travis Blankenhorn is 1st @CRKernels player to record double digits in homers, doubles, triples & stolen bases since Jean Segura in 2010!

— Cedar Rapids Kernels (@CRKernels) August 24, 2017

The double-digits thing sounds more impressive than it is. Ten is a lot of triples. It's not that impressive in homers and steals (he has 11 steals). And 19 doubles isn't anything astounding.

But he's still fairly young for the league.

----

Royce Lewis' leg kick.
(Photo by Linda Vanderwerf)

I commented in the Monday print column about Royce Lewis that he has a bigger leg kick than some pitchers employ in their windup.

Here's a photo of that leg kick, taken by my wife.

I said Monday that I doubt the Twins will try to change anything with him until he starts to struggle. That hasn't happened yet.

Incidentally, Lewis hit his first homer at Cedar Rapids on Monday.

And he drew his first walk Wednesday night (with the bases loaded in extra innings). He has, at this writing, 1:8 walk-to-strikeout ratio in the Midwest League. Granted, it is all of 45 plate appearances, but that's not a good ratio -- and it's drastically different than what he had in the Gulf Coast League, where he had more walks than strikeouts.

Again, small sample size. But it suggests to me that, his lofty batting average aside, he is being challenged by the move to the Midwest League. Which is neither unexpected nor detrimental. It's part of the process.