Our best young pitchers are supposed to be at Kinston this year, but it appears that Joe Gardner made a pretty good impression at Lake County on Friday night. 4 innings, 1 run, earned, on 3 hits and 2 walks. Here's the awesome part: 11 strikeouts. The one out that was not recorded by way of the K was a groundout.
Gardner was a 3rd-round draft choice (94th overall) in 2009 out of UC-Santa Barbara. He didn't play last year, so Friday was actually his professional debut. I'm guessing he won't be able to sustain his present K rate of 24.75 per nine innings. I'd settle for half of that.
Were there any LGTers at that game? I'd like to know what kind of mojo Gardner was using to rack up all those Ks. BTW, Rob Bryson (2 innings) and Antwonie Hubbard (3 innings) struck out 3 apiece, for a total of 17.
