Lancaster, California —— On Wednesday night, Colorado Rockies right-handed pitcher Jairo Diaz made his second rehab appearance on the road back from Tommy John surgery in a game with the High-A California League‘s Lancaster JetHawks against the San Jose Giants. In the game, Diaz threw one inning on 18 pitches (11 strikes), allowing two runs on two hits—including a two-run home run—and picking up two strikeouts (one swinging, one looking).
This directly follows the first Jairo Diaz rehab appearance of the year, on Monday night for the Lancaster JetHawks, where he threw a scoreless inning with just a single allowed.
For our report and video on Monday night’s rehab appearance, please click here.
Jairo Diaz rehab appearance video
Like we have embedded above, here’s video of the full inning Jairo Diaz threw for the Lancaster JetHawks last night:
Here, broken out from that video, is the home run Johneshwy Fargas hit against Jairo Diaz during that inning:
And here, from another camera and angle, is our mechanics video for Jairo Diaz during this appearance, taken from the first base side:
Jairo Diaz rehab appearance notes
By far, Jairo Diaz was more sharp during his Monday appearance than he was last night; his pitch ratio (18 pitches/11 strikes) worked out fine, but he was unrefined in his command, leaving several balls up in the zone, struggling to place his slider, and even leaving a few fastballs high and in as his mechanics were a little inconsistent compared to Monday. Both Fargas’ home run and Jonah Arenado‘s single preceding it were hit very hard on balls left out over the middle and up in the hittable part of the zone. Not ideal, but all that is to be expected for a pitcher returning from Tommy John surgery, especially in his second appearance in three days and the first time he’s gone after one rest day in, well, about 18 months.
It’s a good sign that Diaz made it through the inning well and, again, looked physically fine and free. His velocity will keep coming back, but it still doesn’t look to be there yet (no radar gun in Lancaster again last night, and I opted to head down the first base line to get some hitter video—clips you’ll soon see on this site over the weekend). Diaz’s slider looks like it has late life, with good depth, and that’s a good sign for him too—now, he just needs to refine the feel and command as he continues to rehab. He’s still at least a couple weeks away from any talk of return to the Colorado Rockies, but Diaz took another step forward last night, and all systems seem to be a go from here on.
What’s next for Jairo Diaz? More refinement, more command corrections, more arm strengthening and throwing, and pretty soon here he’ll probably try to go on back-to-back days to see if he’s up for the demands of being back in a big league bullpen. So far, so good. Now it’s time to iron things out.
If he continues to rehab with the Lancaster JetHawks, we’ll have more video on him soon enough.
+++
In this Jairo Diaz Colorado Rockies report:
Colorado Rockies | Lancaster JetHawks | California League | San Jose Giants | San Francisco Giants | Jairo Diaz
Follow Baseball Census on social media:
Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Instagram | Google+ | SoundCloud | Tumblr | Reddit | Giphy
