Carson Fulmer makes Pro Debut in the AZL

Last night at the White Sox Training Facility in Glendale, Arizona, I had the pleasure of seeing one of the most highly touted pitching prospects available in this year's draft. That man is Carson Fulmer, he was drafted 8th overall by the Chicago White Sox. Personally, I thought that Fulmer was # 1 material but, he slid all the way to the White Sox at number eight. Fulmer waited until after the College World Series to sign which is commonplace. However, getting sent to the Arizona League is a bit of a surprise. The makeup of the everyday player in the AZL is typically high school players, VSL/DSL grads, and Juco players. College players are few and far between in the AZL however, every now and again you will see a college player make a tuneup start. In this instance, I expect Fulmer's stay in the AZL to be short. To give a prior example, in 2014 Carlos Rodon pitched 3.0 innings over 2 games.

I arrived at the game early to see what Fulmer's warm-up routine was like. The routine was ordinary in that it included pretty much everything. The only interesting thing about the routine was that Fulmer does about 5 crow-hop style throws before he gets on the mound. If you have never seen this, it makes you wish you could see this more often and not just in warm up.

In the game, Fulmer only faced 3 batters but, looked absolutely unbelievable. His opponent for his pro debut was the AZL Angels. The first batter was Chad Hinshaw who is on Rehab from AA. Hinshaw struck out swinging on a powerful fastball. The next batter, Jahmai Jones, reached base after a bad throw to first which was ruled a hit. The next at bat featured Brandon Bayardi. During this at bat, Fulmer was able to pick off Jones who inched too far off the bag. Bayardi eventually popped up and Fulmer succeeded in working a scoreless inning. Fulmer had six swing-and -misses by my count and looked dominant. He showed great command of the fastball and change-up.

Carson Fulmer's Line on the night: 1.0 IP, H, 0 ER, K, 0 BB