A few days in the minors

Nick Torres has spent a little more than a year in professional baseball and has found success this season. By Owen Main

Drafted in the fourth round in 2015 by the Padres, Nick Torres had a great first half of the summer in Fort Wayne, San Diego’s class Low A affiliate. He hit .326 in 77 games for the Tin Caps and was promoted to Lake Elsinore three weeks ago. Since his promotion, Torres has continued his hot hitting, maintaining a .844 combined OPS and a .326 combined batting average.

I happened to be in the region for work for a weeks and decided to take in a few of the Storm’s home games against the Inland Empire 66ers (Angels).

The first thing to note is that Lake Elsinore hasn’t been very successful in winning games so far this season. At 7-22 in the second half coming into Monday night’s game, they have the worst record in the California League during that time, and the second-lowest record overall (38-61). Torres, who hits in the three-hole, seems to be one of the most competent hitters in the lineup.

ON MONDAY, Torres was busy right away dealing with the blistering late-July sun. With two outs in the first inning, Inland Empire’s Andrew Daniel hits a bleeding line drive right at Torres, and directly into the sun. The ball dropped in front of him in right field, and a few batters later the Storm were down 2-0.

Despite the ball lost in the sun, Torres does look more agile in right field — a little quicker to break and also seems like maybe he’s gotten a little faster. In the second inning, he sprints toward the line and slides to keep a ball from rolling into the corner, holding the opposing hitter to a long single.

Torres singles and is stranded in the first, but manages a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the third. His RBI gets Lake Elsinore a little closer. In the bottom of the sixth inning, Torres singles, steals second base (WHAT?) and scores on a single. After getting pictures of all of it, I figure I can get back to my hotel (an hour away) and prepare for my next day of work, having safely secured a number of photos.

I was wrong.

In the bottom of the 10th inning, Torres’ sacrifice fly is a walk-off. Considering I’ve left two games early this season that have ended in 9th-inning, game-winning grand slams, this early departure wasn’t my worst, but I suppose it does take the bronze medal.

TUESDAY night is hotter than Monday, but it’s also Taco Tuesday at Lake Elsinore Diamond. The promotion is a standard amazing series of deals: $2 tacos, $3 tallboy beers, and it’s working. At first pitch, there are probably twice as many fans as Monday night in attendance — the total at the end of the game is 1,500.

The pitching also seems a little more exciting on Tuesday. Sean Newbomb, Inland Empire’s left-handed starter, begins the game by striking out the first two Storm hitters he faces, sitting at 92-94 miles per hour with his fastball and a curve that made guys look silly all night. Newcomb, a 2014 first-round draft pick of the Angels, clearly has stuff that warrants his first-rounder status. The Storm do everything they can to foul off pitches and stay in counts, but are generally held to soft contact, including Torres’ first-inning soft roller to second base.

Torres measures Newcomb up the second time around, doubling to left field with one out, but he is later stranded at third base. Did I mention the Storm have a .390 winning percentage this season?

One thing that caught my eye were the two coaches in the dugout with major league uniforms on. There was a guy with a Padres uniform in the Storm dugout and a guy with Angels duds in the 66ers’. They are roving instructors, and it makes sense they’d wear the uniform of the Big Club so they don’t have to manage five or six different ones. Against the uniforms of each of the teams playing, the big league uniform is a contrast aesthetically, but it probably also serves as a reminder of where all these players, and umpires for that matter, are trying to get.

Which reminds me, the umpires in this series are the same two guys I saw in San Jose for the Chase Johnson start I saw earlier this season. The two-man crew may seem undermanned — after all, the Blues have three-man crews for all California Collegiate League games — but I bet they do as good a job, if not better than other three-man crews. Also, they get significantly more time calling balls and strikes vs. a three-man crew, which I’m sure is also an advantage as they try to advance to higher levels.

The right field wall is really high in Lake Elsinore. By Owen Main

THE right-field wall in Lake Elsinore is 36 feet high. It’s the last thing the evening shadows overtake and is the backdrop for Torres. The wall dwarfs the young power hitter, but in the third inning of Tuesday’s game, Torres plays the wall like a pro. After an Inland Empire hitter laces one straight over his head, Torres plays the ball on one hop and fires it into second base to hold the hitter to a single. When the next batter singles, Torres’ play could have been run-saving.

A few innings later, Torres gets a bad jump on a ball over his head and the 66ers hitter ends up on second base.

Really, the 66ers’ pitching is the story of the night, holding the Storm in check in a 5-0 win. It turns out that Monday’s win for the Storm is the only one they’ll get in a seven-game stretch.

It seems like Torres is generally in the middle of a lot of action for his new squad, despite the fact he’s only been there for a month or so. I only been two games — part of a schedule that will last for around 140 games and seven months.

AFTER the game, Torres comes out of the dugout and sits next to me for an interview in the top row of the stands. Most of the lights in the stadium are off, save for a few sets that are illuminate the infield. His uniform, is still on, except for his tennis shoes, which have replaced his cleats. Looking out over an empty field Torres reflects on the past 13 months, a hopeful beginning to a professional baseball career.  The grounds crew works on the field under the lights, which seem to be slowly fading, even though I know they aren’t changing a bit. When we are done, Torres heads back into the locker room. There are always preparations to be made in this beautiful grind of professional baseball.

Photos by Owen Main

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1. Podcast Episode 133 – Nick Torres - Fansmanship says:

   09/01/2015 at 9:22 pm

   […] Here are some things I wrote about the experience over two days in Lake Elsinore. It includes a lot of words and photos. […]