Player Breakdowns: May 10th

Chase Dollander, Michael Forret, & Brandon Sproat

Chase Dollander (COL) - High-A:

Dollander came into this start with one of the highest K:BB%, SwStr%, & Average against on a plot I made. I made a similar plot in mid-May last year and Cade Horton’s name popped out as an early riser. Early call — Dollander is this year’s Cade Horton?

Dollander has been excellent, to say the least, to start the season. Yesterday, he pitched to a line of 5IP 6H 2ER 2BB 10K — while most of the damage came in the first inning. He gave up a leadoff home run to Andrew Pintar on the first pitch of the game on a fastball he just grooved right over the heart of the plate. He then walked the next batter before allowing 2 more singles to load the bases. It looked like a start destined for failure in the early going — but he then struck out the next 3 batters to get out of the jam. He threw 30 pitches in the first inning. The second inning was fairly laborious for Dollander, too. He threw 22 pitches in the 2nd inning and he was at 52 pitches through 2 innings as it looked like he wouldn’t get further than the 3rd or 4th inning in this one with the way it was going. After that, he settled into a groove, cruising through an 11-pitch 3rd inning.

Dollander was up to 96-97 with his heater in this one and while his iVB was around 15 inches in the first inning, he settled into a range of 17-18 inches of iVB for the remainder of the start.