Down on the Farm with Vermont Lake Monsters Pitcher Brandon Bailey

Brandon Bailey grew up in Colorado and attended Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, where he struck out 125 batters in 100 1/3 innings while posting a 2.42 ERA in his final season for the Bulldogs. The 21-year-old right-handed pitcher was drafted by the A’s in the 6th round of this year’s amateur draft and is currently playing for Vermont, the A’s Class-A affiliate in the short-season New York-Penn League. Bailey has put up a 3.41 ERA there while notching 32 strikeouts over 29 innings of work, and he just earned his first professional win while striking out 9 in his last appearance for the Lake Monsters on Wednesday.

We shared a blog post from Bailey last month about some of his experiences in the A’s minor league system in the weeks after the draft, which you can see here. And last week, he wrote a blog post about some of his more recent experiences, including the team’s road trip to New York, which he’s allowed us to share with our A’s Farm readers. You can check out Brandon’s personal blog here and you can follow him on Twitter @BBailey_19

 

Well it’s been about two weeks since my last blog post and so much has happened I’m not really sure where to start… So to avoid writers block I’m just going to regurgitate my thoughts onto this post and hopefully it all makes sense.

I’ll begin with the first thing that comes to mind and that’s my 2016 Chevy Colorado pick-up truck. I recently purchased this beauty back in June shortly after being drafted and while it might be cliche to buy a brand new vehicle after signing a professional sports contract, I actually needed a way of transportation due to an unfortunate event that took place in Spokane a month earlier. With about twenty days left in spring semester, “Carrie (named after the beautiful country singer Ms. Underwood)” my 2003 Saturn L300 was stolen outside my off-campus house in the Logan neighborhood. After about a week of waiting, I received a call from the Spokane Police Department informing me that they had found my car totaled and abandon in a parking lot. Just the news I wanted to hear right before finals week and the beginning of the NCAA tournament…

Fast forward to the present and how this relates to me thinking about my new Z71, well it’s simple… This pick-up represents all of the hard work I have put in over the course of the past 12 years and I want to make it AWESOME. The truck was already sick when I drove it off the lot but since this is my first vehicle purchase ever, my plan is to go all out! I decided to have a few minor details done right off the bat which included installing a sunroof, running boards, tinted windows, and having the bed liner sprayed. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of research on what I can do to make the truck even more jaw-dropping; Utilizing the knowledge of my cousin Matt and my new travel roommate Xavier Altamirano in order to make the best decisions in terms of performance and functionality.

Xavier or “X”, actually became my new travel roommate a couple weeks ago after Logan Shore, the A’s second round pick, arrived in Vermont and started rooming with his former college teammate A.J. Puk. Puk, who was Oakland’s first round pick this year, was my original roommate on the road and has become one of my closer friends on the Lake Monsters roster. After the news broke that Shore was going to be joining the team, I had a gut feeling that Puk would want to room with Logan since they both attended the University of Florida. Naturally, I was assigned a new roommate which was Xavier. X, who was recently voted as a NY-Penn League All-Star, has become my closest friend on the team and shares my love for jacked-up trucks. This past week, he provided me with a few great tips on what I can do to improve my new toy and I’ve decided to set a plan into action. I won’t share all the details simply because I don’t want to bore the two people who are actually reading this post but I will say that a 6 inch lift is in the works!

Besides my truck, the next thing that comes to mind is my team’s previous road trip to Brooklyn, New York where we played the New York Mets Single-A affiliate the Brooklyn Cyclones on August 9th through the 11th. It has always been a dream of mine to one day travel to the Big Apple but I never would have guessed this dream would come true at such a young age. During our three day span in the big city, I made it a point to venture downtown to Times Square to do some sight-seeing. X, myself, and another one of my teammates Ty Damron (a left-handed pitcher from Texas Tech) decided to take the subway north towards Manhattan on the morning of our final day in Brooklyn. You could easily tell we were not from the area because we were the only people on the subway attempting to decipher the complex map which was supposed to assist us in navigating our way downtown. After about 10 minutes of head scratching we decided to ask for help and were informed that we needed to take the exit onto 42nd Street.

Anticipation and excitement continued to build up inside my chest with each minute that passed. Ever since I was old enough to comprehend the game of baseball my favorite team growing up (besides the hometown team the Colorado Rockies) was the New York Yankees. Players like Derek Jeter, Paul O’Neill, David Cone, Mariano Rivera, and Bernie Williams fueled my love for the team in pinstripes. As we moved closer to the city, I could feel my passion for Yankee tradition surfacing. After about an hour of waiting, we finally made it to our destination and quickly made our way up to ground level. The experience I had next is almost indescribable…

Never had I seen something so magnificent, vibrant, and extraordinary. There is a certain aura or ambience that flows throughout New York City; A distinctive atmosphere that is luxurious and subtle, its occupants moving at a speed that seem to be faster than Usain Bolt himself (couldn’t resist mixing in an Olympic metaphor). Surprisingly, I was not overwhelmed. In fact, I felt rather comfortable. As we began exploring what the city had to offer, I made it a point to take as many pictures as possible. I saw the New Years Eve ball drop, Central Park, the Plaza Hotel made famous by one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, NIKETOWN NYC where I bought two new pairs of shoes, St. Patricks Cathedral, and finally the Empire State Building. For those of you who are familiar with New York City you would know that my teammates and I traveled roughly 2.5 to 3 miles on foot and let me tell you… It was worth it!

As far as baseball goes, it seems that the team is starting to get back on track. Before this weekend home-stand where we played the Tri-City Valleycats and won the series 2 out of 3, the Lake Monster’s had lost 11 games in a row. It’s not easy facing adversity over the course of a two week span but we persevered and continued to show up to the ballpark ready to give it our all.

I’ve been throwing the ball pretty well as of late. In my last 3 games I’ve pitched 12.1 innings and struck out 9 batters. During that span I’ve only allowed 3 runs (2 earned) on 6 hits. I’m hoping to finish the final two and a half weeks of the season strong so I can go into the fall semester at Gonzaga feeling confident about my first season in professional baseball. With 4 starts left, my main goal is to continue to work fast and fill up the strike zone with all three of my pitches. I’ve also been working on developing a spiked curveball and I’m looking forward to focusing on adding this pitch to my arsenal this off-season.

Two and a half weeks left in the 2016 baseball season…The final stretch.

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