Independent Baseball Insider by Bob Wirz
With the American Association season about to start, one man this year’s players would do well to emulate is Tim Adleman (pictured), who continues to build his profile pitching for the Cincinnati Reds.
Adleman stopped the impressive run of the New York Yankees Tuesday night with his second consecutive victory (2-1, 4.44), giving up three runs in five innings of the 5-3 victory. What a showing by the 29-year-old, who was sent back to the minors during spring training when the Reds had him trying to develop a fourth pitch, an effort the right-hander struggled with at the time.
“He is a strike-thrower, man,” catcher Tucker Barnhart praised to The Cincinnati Enquirer after he subdued Pittsburgh in his next-to-last start. “It’s a pleasure to catch.”
The 2012 Lincoln Saltdogs and El Paso Diablos reliever had this to say to the same newspaper recently: “The way you perform can kind of change people’s perception of you. If you string a couple good months together, a couple good seasons together and you’re doing it against quality opponents, that really gives people a different perspective.”
Adleman seems to be doing just that with his 4-4 record and 4.00 ERA for 13 starts when he got his first major league opportunity last season followed by five appearances–four starts–since getting back to the majors last month. He has allowed more than three runs only once this season.
Previously the chief spokesman for Baseball Commissioners Bowie Kuhn and Peter Ueberroth, Bob Wirz has been writing extensively about Independent Baseball since 2003. He is a frequent contributor to this site, has a blog, www.IndyBaseballChatter.com, and a book about his life, “The Passion of Baseball”, came out in October and is available at traditional book-buying sites, or at www.WirzandAssociates.com.
