PhoulBallz Interview: Jersey Shore BlueClaws manager Chris Adamson

On Thursday, I spoke with Class A Advanced Jersey Shore BlueClaws manager Chris Adamson. In the one-on-one interview, the man known as "Tank" talked about the origins of his nick name, the team's offensive struggles as well as several of his players including Victor Santos, Josh Hendrickson, Adam Leverett, Hunter Markwardt, Jonathan Guzman, Vito Friscia, Logan O'Hoppe and others.

Full audio of the interview is available exclusively on my Patreon page, Patreon.com/PhoulBallz.

Below are a couple of excerpts from the interview, where Adamson offers his thoughts on a pair of his standout hurlers, right-hander Victor Santos and left-hander Josh Hendrickson.

I asked about Santos...the 20-year-old Domincan Republic native sports a 1-1 record with a save, a 0.73 ERA, a 1.05 WHIP and a 10.9 K/9 mark in six relief appearances this season. Adamson had the following to say-

He's really impressive. I didn't actually have a hole lot to do with him during spring training and I've just loved every second of him being around. Obviously, his work on the mound has been unbelievable. For such a young guy, his pitchability is crazy. He's not necessarily running it up to 96, 97 miles an hour, but he's just going out there and pitching. He's landing three pitches for strikes every time he goes out there and he's pitched in some big spots at the back end of games in some of those high leverage situations. He's just been really reliable and he's a guy that we know can compete in the zone with multiple pitches and it's just really cool to see a guy that's so young just go out and show no fear and embrace contact, and early contact at that, and then he's obviously missing bats with just how good his stuff is. It's just really cool to see him- he worked really, really hard last year, he's in really good shape and just to see him have some success is really cool.

I also brought up Josh Hendrickson...the 23-year-old, who was a 38th round draft pick in 2019, holds a 0-1 record with a 3.06 ERA, a 0.79 WHIP and a 12.2 K/9 mark in five outings. Adamson stated-

He's been great. His ability to pitch to both sides of the plate have been really impressive too. He's not a super high velocity guy, but he's been executing pitches particularly on the inner half to right-handed hitters. It's been really impressive and it's opening up the outer third for his secondary stuff, which is continuing to develop. His slider is continuing to develop and just his mindset; he's going out there and he's trusting his stuff and how prepared that he is. It's amazing when you're willing to embrace contact early in counts, the strike outs actually go up as well, 'cause quite often you're pitching ahead of guys, which is a big deal. A number of times we've gotten in trouble this year is when we've found ourselves falling behind in counts and having to throw fastballs in fastball counts. So, just to see him have some success with pitches that are continuing to develop is really exciting and I'm really happy for him.

For the complete audio of this interview head on over the Patreon.com/PhoulBallz!

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