Morales falls triple shy of cycle in MLB debut
Nationals rookie Yohandy Morales showcased raw power and offensive upside with a home run and three-hit performance in his MLB debut.
Video Transcript
A bit of a recent afterthought as a prospect, Nationals former second-round pick Yoandy Morales came up for his Major League debut on Tuesday and fell just a triple short of the cycle in what was a very memorable night for the young corner infielder.
Nicknamed Yo-Yo and starting out at the DH spot, all three of Morales' batted balls were hit at least one hundred and one miles per hour, and he comes to the majors with some serious raw power.
With a one hundred and thirteen mile per hour max exit velocity at AAA, that was supported by an average exit velocity, hard hit rate, and barrel rate that were all better than ninety percent of other AAA hitters this season.
He's also very aggressive on pitches in the strike zone, and seems like he'll have a tendency to swing a lot at the big league level, but can struggle to make consistent contact.
In that opening game, apart from the single, double, and triple, he struck out two times, and his zone contact rate at AAA was barely at seventy-four percent.
A bit of a worrisome sign for how productive and mostly consistent he could be at the big league level.
Expect a free swinger with big power who could have some massive peaks and valleys.
It also seems like the Nationals will give him some playing time to close the season, as he started on Tuesday and Wednesday as a right-handed hitter, both against right-handed pitchers towards the middle of their order around the fifth and sixth spots.
But Washington has built some unlikely corner infield depth over the last few months with the emergences of Andrs Chaparro, who's starting at third base on Wednesday for the Nationals against a right-handed pitcher, Abbymelky Ortiz, and Brady House, plus Jos Tanner, who takes a few reps.
So if anybody from that group falters, someone could lose playing time.
But if anybody hits well and gets hot, it looks like they're going to keep it.
