Scrimmage observations: Jan. 26

It’s been a rough January as far as the weather goes in Lexington, but it warmed up enough this weekend for the Kentucky baseball team to scrimmage the past couple of days at Kentucky Proud Park.

The season opener at Lipscomb is now just 19 days away. The competition on Sunday was strong as the Black Team won 8-6 in six innings, though the Blue Team rallied from an 8-3 deficit in the final frame and brought the winning run to the plate. I’ll provide some thoughts from the scrimmage in a little bit, though I didn’t want to get bogged down in play-by-play action for this piece.

However, here’s how the teams lined up on Sunday:

Black team

1. RF Shaun Montoya
2. CF Will Marcy
3. LF Cole Hage
4. 2B Patrick Herrera (Herrera moved over to third later in the scrimmage)
5. DH James McCoy (McCoy moved to 1B later in the scrimmage)
6. 3B Ethan Hindle (Moved to second base when Herrera went to third)
7. C Raphael Pelletier
8. 1B Hudson Brown
9. Nolan Belcher (Moved to catcher later in the scrimmage)
10. SS Aidan Larkin

Pitchers: RHP Chase Alderman, LHP Logan Grubb, RHP Cooper Robinson

Blue team

1. 2B Luke Lawrence
2. SS Tyler Bell
3. 1B Dylan Koontz
4. 3B Kyuss Gargett
5. RF Carson Hansen
6. DH Ryan Schwartz (moved to catcher later in the scrimmage)
7. CF Griffin Cameron
8. LF Khaleel Pratt

Pitchers: LHP Leighton Harris, RHP Nate Harris, RHP Bradley Ferrell

From what I recall, there was no ninth hitter on the Blue team. Outfielder/DH Eli Small did not participate in the scrimmage after getting banged up during Saturday’s scrimmage while diving for a ball, and senior catcher Devin Burkes did not bat, but he did catch for the Blue team.

Observations

• Center fielder Will Marcy went the opposite way for a home run off Leighton Harris in his first at-bat to start the scoring for the Black team. They loaded the bases with two outs but Harris struck out Pelletier to end the threat.
• Speaking of Gargett, he was with what I would expect to be the first-team infield at this point (Burkes at catcher, Koontz at first, Lawrence at second and Bell at Shortstop). As I wrote earlier this week, this is the position I was most interested in watching today. It’s hard to ignore Gargett's overall athleticism and defensive potential. Not ready to make any predictions here just yet, but it feels like Gargett has some momentum to win this job.
• Really good day from Tyler Bell. He hit the ball hard on a line three times and his groundout in the first inning was also stung. Bell, a switch hitter, did damage from both sides of the plate on Sunday. He’ll have a lot of eyes on him this year since he turned down a seven-figure deal from the Tampa Bay Rays, but he looks as advertised to this point. We’ll see how that carries into his first season of college baseball.
• Also thought right fielder Shaun Montoya performed well during the scrimmage. He tripled during the final frame and also reached base during the scrimmage with a walk. I was told that Montoya homered during yesterday’s scrimmage.
• Freshman RHP Nate Harris is intriguing. Not sure what role he’ll have this season, though it seems likely he’ll be pitching during the midweek games in some capacity. Generally speaking, I think this freshman group of pitchers has more potential than some of the others who have come through the program in recent years.
• RHP Cooper Robinson had to walk a tightrope in the final inning to close out the scrimmage, but he got the job done. His first inning was probably the best of the day from any pitcher as he struck out the side rather quickly.

EKU transfer Chase Alderman made the start for the Black team. His fastball was in the low 90s and he was also throwing a slider in the low 80s. He didn’t allow any runs over two innings of work. He committed a throwing error on a ball hit back to him, which moved Luke Lawrence to 2B, but he got some nice defensive help to keep runs off the board. Herrera made a good sliding play to his left to throw out Tyler Bell. Alderman then retired Dylan Koontz on a fastball out of the zone, and Hage made a nice sliding catch in left field on a ball that Kyuss Gargett hit 102 miles per hour. Alderman wasn’t cleared until the end of fall, but he’s in a good position to pitch on the weekends this season.