Some interesting comments from Gorm Heimueller, The Phillies Minor League Pitching Coordinator during a recent conversation he had with Greg Giombarrese, the Lakewood BlueCLaws Media Relations Manager.  Check out the entire conversation at http://blog.blueclaws.com/. 

On Trevor May’s latest outing: “He has looked alot more under control, except maybe the first inning on Monday. Not that many times can you throw 35 pitches in an inning, not give up a run and nobody hits a fair ball. The most encouraging thing, with the long inning, he regrouped and gave us five more solid innings…A lot of those games he wasn’t taken out because of getting hit, but they were pitch counts. The other day, he threw 35 in the first but ended up with just 94.”

On Colby Shreve: “It’s been outstanding. He didn’t pitch last year, though we were expecting him to. He had the setback and they had to go clean up the elbow. After seeing a few of these guys go through the first year of Tommy John, I don’t think we’ve seen the best of him in terms of velocity. I do think he’s learned a lot about pitching. They’re down in Florida for a long time. They talk pitching. They see a lot of pitching and learn a lot without even realizing it.”

On Josh Zeid:”He’s had a real solid year. Last year with Williamsport he was one of our top starters. Most years, he would have been in the rotation this year, but a Cosart, Pettibone, Colvin, Hernandez, those guys pushed him to the bullpen. It’s kind of like Justin De Fratus last year, where he started in the pen and then in the second half got to work on his pitches in the rotation.”

On Vance Worley’s improvement this year:”He was trying to do more things than he needed to. He’s a command pitcher. His fastball command allows him to have success. His breaking ball has gotten better and his confidence has grown. Last year, his first full year of pro ball he pitched all season in Double-A. That experience helped him for this year. He’s been real consistent 90% of the season.”

On Jonathan Pettibone and his increased velocity: “It was more striding out further and allowing him to use his lower half more. In his case, he’s had some success and you can see his confidence grow and grow. We’ve added two things: a two-seam fastball to allow for movement away to lefties and in to righties, and a slider, about a month ago. It’s still in the work-in-progress state, but he’s thrown some good ones.”

As always a big thank you goes out to the Lakewood BlueClaws, specifically their Media Relations staff.