The Shorebirds are sending four players to the SAL All-Star Game June 20 in Rome, Georgia. Previously three of these players (Brandon Tripp, Chris Vinyard, and Brad Bergesen) were named as my SotW honorees, so All-Star number four gets his due this week.
Jeff Moore wasn’t a highly touted prospect because, well, he’s not the biggest pitcher out there. That meant his name wasn’t called by the Orioles until the 17th round in the 2005 amateur draft. But he did have some polish as a college pitcher (out of UNC-Wilmington) so the O’s took a chance that the kid could develop. So far he has done well for himself; in 11 starts this year he’s gone 3-1 and leads the team’s qualifiers with an ERA of 2.01. Of his 11 starts, 4 are considered “quality” starts (defined as 6 or more innings pitched and 3 or fewer earned runs given up.) Most of the rest were short by an inning or so, which is the trend among Delmarva hurlers – generally they’re on a pitch count so starts don’t often extend past 6 innings.
What amazed me in looking up his stats for this post is how much control he had last season at Aberdeen. Jeff pitched 78 2/3 innings and walked FIVE. That may explain why he was 6-2 with a 2.29 ERA down there and why he was ticketed for the Shorebirds this season. A few more starts like he’s been coming up with here and he may be on to the next step up in his career. At 24, the Orioles may want to move him a bit faster up the chain if they like his progress in Delmarva.
Mike,
Good work the pic this time!
Thanks. I may go back and redo a few of the earlier SotW pictures that didn’t come out as well since I’ve gotten pretty good pix of all the players now (in a 640×480 format that works well on my website). At this point I’m working on Lakewood and Lake County just for my personal collection – some people collect baseball cards, I collect player pics.