The New York Yankees Brady Lail continues to impress
By Wayne Cavadi
Maybe it’s time for the New York Yankees to start paying attention to Brady Lail.
Thunder All-Star @blail3 shuts down the @bmets offense with a complete game 2-hit shut out tonight! pic.twitter.com/fRnbo6uier
— Trenton Thunder⚡ (@TrentonThunder) July 26, 2015
Names like Luis Severino and Ian Clarkin dominate talks when discussing the Yankees top pitching prospects, but quietly other arms have been making their presence felt in the Yankees system as well. Lail has been one of those under the radar guys for quite some time.
Lail won’t blow you away with the flashiest of stuff, and he likely will never be the headliner of any rotation, but he has improved in different areas of his game throughout his four year career.
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The 21-year old righty, has an ideal young pitcher’s frame, standing at 6 foot 2 and 205 pounds. He was drafted in the 18th round of the 2012 draft and despite a small hiccup in his late 2013 three game debut at Tampa, has never really had a bad season.
Lail has great command of four pitches, and as I already mentioned, none are going to blow you away. His fastball usually sits in the high-80s, but he is able to induce ground balls which keeps him out of trouble. His curve and changeup are vastly improving and what Lail does best is throw strikes. He showed his stuff Saturday night.
Lail had arguably the best start of his young career, tossing a complete game shutout. He allowed just two hits and struck out four while walking only one batter. Furthermore, he did it against a very solid Binghamton Mets lineup that featured Travis d’Arnaud in the three hole on his rehab assignment.
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The right hander landed 73-percent of his pitches in the strike zone. He had 10 ground ball outs compared to seven fly outs. Of the three batters that reached base, none made it past first base. His lone walk was eliminated on the very next batter in a double play.
Coming off a 17-inning marathon on Friday night — one in which outfielder Taylor Dugas took the loss from the mound — Lail knew he had to rest those bullpen arms. That he certainly did.
"“I felt great,” Lail told Robert Emrich of MiLB.com. “With our long game last night, I knew I had to go at least six, seven innings. I felt like everything was really working tonight. I had good command of my fastball, good curveball, decent changeup, good cutter. The biggest thing for me was Eddy Rodriguez behind the plate, he called a good game. I don’t think I shook him off once all night.“My whole focus tonight was to get ahead, get that first-pitch strike, let my stuff work, let them hit and try to get them out as quick as possible. That was my goal tonight, try and get first-pitch strikes.”"
Lail now sits at 6-3 on the season with an impressive 2.24 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP. The Yankees currently have quite a few options ahead of Lail in regards to their future rotation, but the young righty is making some noise. It’s time for the Yankees to pay a lot more attention to Lail.