MINOR LEAGUE REPORT - Oland dominating in Fort Wayne

by Jason Martinez
posted 6/21/08





A 24th Round pick in 2007 out of Sonoma State, you're not going to find a lot of information on the web regarding Bryan Oland. I can usually find, at
least, a story from their college newspaper about them. But I couldn't even find that. No scouting reports. Nothing about his reperoire. Nothing about his
career at baseball power Sonoma State.

So for now, all we have to go by are his professional stats. The 6'3" right-hander was not impressive in his professional debut, giving up 14 earned runs
and 32 hits in 20 innings pitching as a 22 year-old in the Arizona Rookie League.

However, 2008 is a different story. After starting the season in extended spring training, Oland did not make his debut with Fort Wayne until May 24th.
Eleven games and 14.2 innings later, he has yet to allow a run. In fact, he's allowed just eight hits and one walk, while striking out 17 batters.
Right-handed batters are hitting just .120 against him. And here's the most ridiculous stat I could find. When runners are on base and Oland is on the
mound, batters are just 1-for-24 with seven strikeouts.

Very small sample size, but still worth noting.

AAA PORTLAND : Probably one of the biggest disappointments for the Padres this season has been Joe Thatcher, who was expected to step into the
7th inning role, bridging the gap to Heath Bell and Trevor Hoffman. After being given chance after chance to succeed at the big league level in 2008,
and failing miserably (0-4, 7.40 ERA), he was finally banished to Portland. But sometimes failure is a good thing for an individual. The left-hander had yet
to experience any sort of adversity, as he had posted ERA's of 1.62, 1.36, and 1.35, respectively, in his first three professional seasons since signing
with the Milwaukee Brewers organization in 2005. Now that he has experienced success and failure at the big league level, he'll likely work even harder
to get back to the majors. So far, so good. In 14.1 innings in AAA, the left-hander has an ERA of 1.26, including no runs allowed in his last 12.1 innings.

AA SAN ANTONIO: Shortstop Sean Kazmar might finally be starting to figure out this AA stuff. After failing to prove he could hit Texas League pitching
as a 22 year-old in 2007, batting just .208 in 78 games, Kazmar was demoted to Lake Elsinore. Given a second chance in San Antonio this season,
Kazmar looked even worse than he did the first time around, batting just .198 through the first two months of the season. But the 5'9" infielder has
been on fire in the month of June, with 23 hits in 55 at bats, raising his batting average to a respectable .253.

HI A LAKE ELSINORE: Kellen Kulbacki proved in 2007 that he can do some serious damage in a short period of time. After struggling throughout his
first month of professional baseball, Kulbacki batted .360 with 6 HR, and 21 RBI's over his last 100 at bats of the season. Fast -forward to 2008. New
season, same results. After getting a late start due to injury, he was terrible at Fort Wayne (.164, 2 HR in 18 games), and then batted .221 with 1 HR
through his first 22 games with Lake Elsinore. But since June 1st, the 22 year-old is batting .328 with 6 HR's, 14 RBI's, and a .656 slugging percentage.