Lee getting comfortable in PCL
By joshjacksonmilb
By Josh Jackson / MiLB.com
Highly touted Dodgers pitching prospect Zach Lee has been to two Winter Development Camps — — one in Arizona, and one in L.A. He’s been named the team’s Branch Rickey Minor League Pitcher of the Year. He’s spent parts of three Spring Training seasons in the Cactus League. He’s started for the Dodgers in an exhibition in Australia.
But until this month, he’d never pitched in the Pacific Coast League.
Three starts in for the Albuquerque Isotopes, it’s safe to say the 22-year-old has had early success in the Triple-A circuit. Despite feeling his command was unreliable in his latest outing, he put up his best results. Is Lee already comfortable at the new level?
“I’m feeling pretty good as far as getting out to a good, quick start to the season,” he said. “I’m still getting used to the parks and some of the travel, but I wouldn’t say it’s an uncomfortable adjustment. It’s just an adjustment.”
Lee’s most recent start was his second at Albuquerque’s Isotopes Park, which yields more hits, runs and home runs than any other venue in Triple-A. He tries to keep a simple but specific approach there: focus on getting groundouts.
“The key is to throw strikes and work ahead and keep the ball down. Ground balls don’t leave the park. You’re not going to get hurt too bad on ground balls,” he said. “You want to make it so they have to get three or four hits to score. You don’t want it so they’re scoring off you with one swing of the bat.”
Although Lee felt sharper in each of his first two starts — a win at Tacoma and a no-decision against those Rainiers at home — than he did his third, he also found something to improve upon in those outings.
“The biggest thing probably is just finishing hitters,” he said. “In my first two starts, I was getting ahead of guys 0–2 and 1–2, and sometimes I allowed them to get back into counts and didn’t put them away when I should have.”
