Hudson Valley carries a 52-35 record into Sunday’s series finale with Jersey Shore.
The Renegades have dropped their last two games since returning from the Major League Baseball All-Star break. Still, the team has had a pretty good season, finishing the first half 38-26 and 2.5 games back of the Greensboro Bats in the second half.
Much of that success can be attributed to its pitching. Having arms like ECU baseball alum Josh Grosz has made the team competitive again while also breathing some new life into the Yankees’ farm system.
Nathan Maciborski wrote about this in a longform piece for MLB.com. He mentioned the likes of former pitcher Brien Taylor, the hard-throwing kid from Carteret County who took baseball by storm in 1991 but never made it to the majors.
Pitchers like Grosz, who moved into the Yankees’ top 30 prospects list within the last week, are doing their part to not only help the team but improve their case for moving up the minor league ladder.
Maciborski writes in part, “There is room to grow, of course, and these 22- and 23-year-olds are working diligently to hone their craft and be ready whenever their name gets called. The lessons that they are learning at Hudson Valley go well beyond getting the most out of their individual skills, though. Sure, they’re becoming better, smarter pitchers. They’re also becoming Yankees pitchers, first intrinsically, eventually, maybe, literally.”
Adding some good pitching in the recent draft is only gonna help them and players like Grosz.
“The biggest thing for new Draft guys is creating a game plan,” said Grosz, an 11th-round pick out of East Carolina in 2023 who earned a promotion from Tampa last August and was having another strong campaign in his second season at Hudson Valley. “In college, the coaches call every pitch for you, so you’re kind of just a robot. In this organization, no matter where you are, it’s on you as a pitcher and a catcher to come up with a game plan.”
Photo credit: Josh Grosz (MLB Pipeline photo)
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