Pro.
Montreal Robertson has faced 1,344 hitters as a pro. He’s a right-handed pitcher in the Tigers system who doesn’t strike out a ton of guys, but he keeps the ball on the ground and in the park with a big league-grade sinker.
In five seasons, spanning 299.2 innings, Robertson — who pitched at the High A and AA levels this season and earned a Detroit assignment to the Arizona Fall League — has been taken deep 12 times. He hasn’t had a season yet in which he’s allowed more than four home runs.
Robertson was making his second AFL appearance for Scottsdale yesterday, having previously thrown 2.2 perfect frames in his AFL debut. He came in to start the ninth inning, entrusted with a 5-4 Scorpions lead over Surprise.
He struck Royals prospect Ramon Torres out on a foul tip.
He caught future Rangers center fielder Lewis Brinson (who’d singled twice in four trips) looking at strike three.
An out away from a win.
Then a strike away from a win, as he had a full count on the Saguaros’ two-hole hitter. Robertson came back with another sinking fastball, at 95 miles per hour.
And Jurickson Profar deposited it over the right field fence, tying the game.
(Eight innings after he’d doubled down the line in the first inning, in his first action since February shoulder surgery.)
Yes, Profar is six years into his career, and he still may not throw a baseball in a game setting before spring training.
Look: He’s still just 22. Four months younger than Hanser Alberto.
Robertson is 25.
None of us knows where exactly Profar fits, but this is a versatile, switch-hitting ballplayer with an 80-grade internal clock, considered by some pre-injury to be the number one prospect in baseball, and with his shoulder repaired rather than rested, there’s greater reason for Profar optimism now than there’s been in a while.
And that’s this morning’s edition of Bring On 2016.


