• Mariners' Ramirez has No. 2 starter potential

  • By Keith Law | March 28, 2009 7:48:11 AM PDT
Juan Ramirez (also known as J.C. Ramirez) is one of the Mariners' top pitching prospects and a sort of white whale for me; I chased him for a good part of spring training last year but never saw him, and finally nabbed him Friday after three-plus weeks in Arizona this year.The 20-year-old right-hander is impressive, with No. 2 starter stuff if he can hold up in the rotation and end-of-game stuff if he ends up in the bullpen. His fastball was 91-96 mph, sitting 93-94 for three innings and then sliding to 91-93 in the fourth, which isn't unusual for this time of year since he hadn't gone past three innings in any prior outing. Most of his fastballs had good glove-side run, although he threw one at 91 with tailing life (probably a two-seamer). He threw only fastballs in the first inning and gave up a few hits as a result, but in the second he started mixing in an above-average slider at 77-80 with a very sharp break. He doesn't have great feel for it but did use it at least twice against lefties to attack the outside corner. He showed a change that was mostly straight but used the slider in almost every changeup count.

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