August 1 for July 31 Update

I went to Falmouth on Friday night to watch Falmouth and Bourne, and between the rain that poured down during the last few innings and the lack of a reliable radar gun, it was not the most successful of evenings.

But I got to take a look at Falmouth lefthander Taylor Wall from Rice, and Wall and his devastating changeup did not disappoint.

Falmouth won 9-2 in a game that was stopped after 7 1/2 innings because of the rain.

Wall is certainly one of the 10 best starters in the Cape League, and he should be a high draft pick when he becomes eligible in 2011. Wall is average height for a pitcher with a thin, athletic build. He rushes through his motion but he throws with ease and with good arm action. Wall's fastball sits in the upper 80's but he spots it well. He throws a devastating changeup that is probably the best change on the Cape this summer, and is the pitch that makes him such an intriguing prospect. It is very deceptive out of his hand and floats in with big time movement. He relies heavily on the change, and understandably so as it gets a lot of swings and misses. Wall still needs to develop a reliable breaking ball to maximize the effectiveness of his fastball/changeup combination. He throws both a curveball and a slider, but both pitches are just average at this point.

Bourne's starter was lefthander Bryan Morgado from the University of Tennessee, the White Sox' third-round pick last month. Morgado is above-average height with a thin, athletic build at 6'3" 205. Morgado has a tight motion and throws easily with good arm action. His fastball touched 94 mph the last time I saw him pitch, but he left it out over the plate too often on Friday and it got hit. Morgado throws a good slider with late movement and a good changeup with downward movement. He is extremely slow to the plate, and runners steal bases off of him almost at will. Morgado is an advanced pitcher and when he hits his spots he is effective.

Falmouth first baseman Hunter Morris from Auburn absolutely crushed a Morgado fastball that missed its location and hit a home run that must have traveled more than 400 feet. Morris has big-time raw power, and he can certainly hit a fastball, but Morgado made him look bad waving at sliders in a previous at-bat. Morris also made an athletic play at first base tagging out a runner after bringing down a high throw.

Bourne first baseman Kyle Roller from East Carolina, Oakland's 47th-round pick last month, also showed off his power with a home run to straightaway center. Roller has been one of the most impressive hitters in the league all summer, leading everybody with eight home runs, and one has to think he is making himself a lot of money either this year or next year if he decides to return to school.

Falmouth centerfielder Todd Cunningham from Jacksonville State, the league's leading hitter, hit a home run over the foul pole. Bourne second baseman Pierre LePage from UConn twice drove the ball to the opposite field for hits, and also showed off his superior athleticism with a leaping grab of a line drive to rob Cunningham of a hit.

I plan to be at Falmouth at Harwich on Saturday.

AROUND THE LEAGUE

Brewster 1 Y-D 0: Four Brewster pitchers combined to scatter eight hits in the shutout. Y-D third baseman Tyler Hanover from LSU went 3-for-4. Leftfielder John Barr from the University of Virginia and first baseman Harold Martinez from the University of Miami each had two hits for Brewster.

Cotuit 8 Wareham 2: Leftfielder Zach Cone from the University of Georgia, designated hitter Cameron Rupp from the University of Texas, rightfielder Kevin Keyes from the University of Texas and third baseman Kevin Patterson from Auburn all homered for Cotuit.

Chatham 8 Hyannis 7: Leftfielder Joey Terdoslavich from Long Beach State and shortstop Tyler Rahmatulla from UCLA each went 2-for-4 with two RBIs for Chatham. Rightfielder Jackie Bradley Jr., went 3-for-5 for Hyannis.

Orleans 3 Harwich 2: Pinch Hitter Matt Koch from Loyola Marymount hit a walk-off single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and rightfielder Jeremy Gould from Duke went 2-for-3 and scored the game-winning run for Orleans. Shortstop Levi Michael from UNC had two hits for Harwich.

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? E-Mail me at schimmeldbk@gmail.com

Want to be alerted every time I update this blog? Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Greg_Schimmel