Jordan Walker Has Found His Power

Sunday’s Prospect Performers

Jordan Walker, 3B, Cardinals: On the seventh day of the 2022 season, Jordan Walker had his first three-hit game of the season. That brought his batting average up over .300. Since then, he’s never seen his batting average dip below .300, as he’s been one of the Texas League’s best hitters. But if you were going to try to find any fault in a relatively faultless 2022 season, Walker hasn’t hit for all that much power, which is surprising since he’s extremely strong and makes plenty of hard contact. This weekend, Walker seems to have rediscovered his home run stroke. He homered twice on Friday, and then homered twice again on Sunday. He now has 12 home runs this season to go with his .305/.390/.514 slash line.

James Wood, OF, Padres: Wood has missed time in two different stints because of a wrist injury. But since he’s returned to health in mid-June, he’s been arguably the best hitter in the California League. Wood went 4-for-5 with a double and a monstrous home run on Sunday. He hit .356/.463/.656 in July and is now hitting .337/.453/.601 overall.

Cole Winn, RHP, Rangers: It’s not been a good year for Winn. He’s walked far too many batters this year. But Sunday was his best outing of the year. Winn held Sacramento to one hit in five scoreless innings, with three walks and nine strikeouts. That lowered his ERA for the year to 5.72.

Ryan Pepiot, RHP, Dodgers: Pepiot worked seven innings for a second straight start, which is notable because Pepiot now has back-to-back outings of seven innings, having never thrown seven innings in any of his first 43 MiLB starts. In each of these past two starts, Pepiot has used his changeup, his best pitch, much less frequently than normal. Pepiot only threw 12 changeups (14%) on Sunday as compared to 32 sliders (37%).

Alex Ramirez, OF, Mets: When Ramirez was promoted to High-A Brooklyn in early July, he took a little while to get settled in at the new level. On July 15, he was hitting .135/.179/.270. Since then, he’s managed to get very comfortable handling his tougher assignment. Ramirez had his first two home run game of the season yesterday and his fifth home run of the past 10 games. He had six home runs all season before this recent power surge. Ramirez is now hitting .300/.360/.575 for Brooklyn, quite the rise in just a couple of weeks.