The Cut4 Road Trip, Day 8: Meeting Micker Adolfo and discovering the wonders of roadside America
The guys behind Cespedes Family BBQ have embarked on a cross-country road trip to see as many Top-100 MLB prospects as possible.You can find an introduction to the trip and their full schedule by clicking here.
America is pretty incredible. Economic prosperity is dope, personal freedoms even doper. There's also baseball here. But one thing about America that frequently gets overlooked is simply how much of America there is. Like few other countries in the world (what's good, Kazakhstan), the United States has an insane amount of open space. Some people use that space for farming, others use it for hiking, others use it to build miniature cities out of stone in their front yard.
We always knew that as we drove south into some of America's more open spaces, we'd see some weird stuff. So far, America has come through. We actually drove a half hour out of our way Thursday to go see the stone village, but usually while you're on the road, America's peculiar side will find you. We've only been south of Washington D.C. for a day or so and we've already come across a smorgasbord of unusual things.
-An enormous Orioles logo painted on the side of a barn up the street from the stone village
-A get out jail free card (pic of Mitch bail bonds)
-A high roller on the highway
While our journey to Hickory was somewhat complicated, it pales in comparison to the journey of No. 8 White Sox outfield prospect Micker Adolfo. We had to drive through a bunch of states and write a lot of dumb jokes to make it to Low-A. Adolfo made his way through multiple countries before turning pro.
Adolfo's success at a such a young age is certainly impressive, but he's not the only youthful standout on the Intimidators. Kannapolis' hitting coach, Justin Jirschele (son of Royals third base coach Mike Jirschele), is only 26 years old. He's just four days older than Jackie Bradley Jr. After spending a few years playing in the White Sox system, Jirschele has made a seamless transition from the uniform into the BP jacket. We sat down and asked him about his unique road into coaching.
We Also Watched A Baseball Game: Kannapolis Intimidators at Hickory Crawdads
Crawdads 7, Intimidators 3: Roughly 24 hours after watching an NL East showdown between the Mets and the Nationals, here we were watching two South Atlantic League sides square off. While there were no Max Scherzers or Yoenis Cespedeses, these two teams satisfied our prospect appetite pretty well. Rangers No. 6 prospect Eric Jenkins led off with a triple to the left-center field gap and flew around the bases in a blink. No. 28 Ti'Quan Forbes notched two hits and displayed impressive raw power in batting practice, launching several balls well beyond the left field fence. No. 11 Yeyson Yrizarri looked pretty solid for a 19-year-old in full-season ball.
But the highlight of the evening by far came from our new friend Micker. In the bottom of the 5th, the 19-year-old unleashed one of the best throws we've ever seen from right field to get Hickory catcher Tyler Sanchez out at home by a good 20 feet. He may have been 0-for-4 at the plate, but that play made us understand why the White Sox have such high hopes for the young outfielder, as his raw athletic abilities are downright jaw-dropping.
Where We Woke Up: South Hill, VA
Where We Slept: Commerce, GA
Miles Driven: 418
Miles Driven To-Date: 2,528
Time in Car: 6:49
Time in Car To-Date: 42:53
Tomorrow's Plan: Our adventure continues west and adds another state to our trip's collection, as we head to Montgomery, Alabama, home of the universally beloved Biscuits. The popular Double-A Rays affiliate will take on the Mobile BayBears in a Southern League clash for the ages. At least, we hope so. We are eager to get our hands on as much Biscuit merchandise and apparel they have to offer, as well as some actual biscuits. Check back tomorrow to find out how successful we were.