Thursday, Jenrry Mejia earned his first win since June 1, back when he was with St. Lucie.  He was charged with five runs, four earned, in 3.2 innings, but two of those runs were bequeathed to RHP Josh Stinson, who was very hittable and allowed both to cross the plate.   At the request of Dan Warthen, Mejia used his two-seam fastball much more than in previous outings.

Mejia was pleased with his performance relative to his other AFL outings, “I pitched better today,” he said.  He explained that the difference was mechanical, “Before, I had no extension.  I wanted to throw hard.  Now I wanted to throw more strikes, I felt more comfortable today.”  Mejia threw strikes with 58% (33 of 57) of his pitches Thursday, approaching the MLB average of 61%.

His fastball which sat 93-95 mph is a real weapon.  He can cut it, or not.  His two-seamer had life at 92-93 mph as well.  However, he still struggles to throw strikes with his hard curveball (78-80 mph).  According to Brooks Baseball, he only found the zone on two of his six hooks Thursday.

The video below is classic Mejia, after falling behind, he throws two fastballs with filthy movement, misses with a curve, and then finishes off Lorenzo Cain with the heat.

The other thing Mejia did well Thursday was induce groundballs.  I’ve got some video of Mejia keeping SS Ruben Tejada busy. We’ll talk more about Mejia next week as well.

Finally, after the game I sat down with Mejia for almost 15 minutes.  We talked – in English and I was blown away.  He was comfortable expressing himself.  Last summer in Brooklyn, he needed pitching coach Hector Berrios to translate for him in interviews.  The progress Mejia has made with the language speaks to his drive and first-class intelligence.