Jameson Taillon Dominates the Flying Squirrels

Jameson Taillon entered the 2012 season with some pretty lofty expectations for his development. He started the year in Bradenton and had some good patches and some bad. In the 23 starts he made before his promotion he had a 3.82 ERA with 7.1 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9. Those are pretty solid numbers, but not quite the domination many people expected from him. A strong month of July helped him get bumped up to AA Altoona, where he has now made two starts.

In his first start he pitched five innings allowing just four hits and not letting a single run cross the plate. He struck out six and didn't walk anybody. That was a tough start to top, but he managed to do it in his second start, which he made tonight.

The Curve hosted the Richmond Flying Squirrels and Taillon put up another zero in the runs column through six innings. He allowed just one hit and struck out seven. Hunter Strickland pitched the final three innings to complete the shutout.

So that's 11 innings for Taillon, no runs allowed, no walks, and 13 strikeouts. I'm not sure if you could ask for 11 better innings. All of this is extremely encouraging because he showed some inconsistencies in single-A. Obviously two starts isn't going to prove anything, but it sure is nice to see from Taillon. He was frankly making some people a bit nervous with his inability to stay consistent in such a low level of the minor leagues, and a strong finish to the season in AA could really send his prospect stock soaring.