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Walt Nolen
Pitcher -- Chicago Cubs
Walt Nolen is a 23 year old pitcher in the Chicago Cubs organization.
In 2004, Walt's first season of professional baseball, he posted a 3-1 record with a 4.28 ERA while striking out 32 batters in 27.1 innings for the Arizona League Cubs.
Journal Entry 6-20-2005
Hope everything is going well for all you readers and y'all are having a great summer. Well, we are coming into our all-star break and things have been very busy.
We currently in 4th place and just took ourselves out of playoff contention for this half. We had a shot for a while and actually pushed our record to two games about .500 which was big for us. We hit a snag the last two nights against Quad Cities however, and eliminated ourselves, but I believe we are gonna make a run in the second half and get one of the playoff spots.
On my end, I finally got over the control problems that had plagued me for about 3 weeks. Sometimes it just takes awhile to find it. It all came to a head one night when I walked 3 guys including walking in a baserunner. That's always a no win situation because you don't even give yourself a chance.
I felt helpless our there. The following day our pitching coach Tom Pratt and pitching coordinator Lester Strode took me to the side and worked with me and my arm slot and just told me to keep throwing. Two days later I got back into a game, a tie game at that in the 9th inning and proceeded to throw three shut out innings with no hits and picked up my 5th win of the season.
Later on that week I threw another two innings striking out four and allowing just one hit. So, the mechanical adjustments have made a difference and the words of wisdom from my coaches have really been beneficial.
One of the cool things about playing ball is you always run into someone you know or someone who is friends with your friend. Lately with have been playing Quad Cities, which is currently the home for Rick Ankiel, the former big league pitcher turned hitter.
Well, a couple of years ago my high school friend played with Ankiel and that gave me an opportunity to have a quick conversation with him which was pretty neat. I always enjoy meeting new people and it was fun to talk to a guy of his stature in the baseball world. I won't lie either he swings a pretty good bat at times, hitting 2 home runs off us in five games.
Since we are going into the all-star break I just want to say congratulations to my teammates who made the all-star team: Sean Gallagher, Luis Montanez, Chris Shaver, Matt Weber, Ryan Harvey, Eric Patterson, and one of our teammates that made it but won't play due to a serious leg injury, Alberto Garica. Good Luck guys!
Well that's about it and thanks for reading.
Walt
You may email your questions for Walt Nolen to WaltNolen@topprospectalert.com
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