Davis Polo Strikes Out 12

Davis Polo. A name you’ve heard before and a name you’ll need to get used to hearing. After a solid outing in his High-A debut, he took the mound for his second start with Rome. His stat line shows three earned runs, but they really don’t tell the story of how great he was in this game. Only six batters reached base during his six inning performance. Two of the three runs he allowed came from solo home runs, showing how well he limited the damage when runners were on base. His slider and changeup proved to be an issue for Winston-Salem hitters, generating plenty of swing-and-miss at the bottom of the zone. He finished the game with a single game career high 12 strikeouts and 22 whiffs.

Polo’s performance was impressive not only because of the strikeout total but because of how he responded each time Winston-Salem managed to get something going against him. He allowed a solo home run in the first inning but came back to strike out the final batter of the inning. He then struck out two more during a perfect second. Another solo home run led off the third, but once again, Polo settled back in and struck out two of the next three hitters.

That was the theme during his start. Winston-Salem drew a leadoff walk in the fourth, but Polo stranded the runner by striking out two batters. In the fifth, he struck out three hitters around another walk. The only inning where the Dash were able to put multiple hits together was the sixth, when back-to-back singles produced their third run. But Polo responded by striking out two of the next three hitters to finish his outing.

Polo threw 88 pitches, with 57 going for strikes. He generated 22 whiffs on 45 swings, giving him a whiff rate of nearly 49%. He also struck out 12 of the 24 batters he faced, meaning half of the hitters who stepped into the box against him went down on strikes. Twelve of the 18 outs he recorded came by strikeout. It wasn’t just that Polo was getting outs Winston-Salem hitters were struggling to make contact against him at all.

Polo has been on a tear lately. In his two High-A starts, he pitched 11 innings and allowed only four earned runs while recording 18 strikeouts. That gave him a 3.27 ERA and an impressive 14.7 K/9 during his short time with Rome.

Two days after his last start, Polo got the call up to Double-A Columbus. Part of the reasoning could be to give him another start with Rome’s season coming to an end, but you have to imagine the Braves want to see as much from Polo as possible before the year is over. He went from Single-A Augusta to Double-A Columbus in only 10 days, which shows just how quickly things have changed for him. His next start will be in Double-A and I look forward to seeing what he can do when the talent level is higher than what he’s previously faced in his previous games. 

Polo is eligible for the Rule 5 Draft this offseason, meaning the Braves will have to decide whether to protect him by adding him to the 40-man roster. That doesn’t guarantee another organization would select him, but leaving him unprotected would create the possibility of losing one of the fastest rising pitchers in the Braves farm system.