Giants call up Matt Downs!

JoJoforHeisman · June 16th, 2009, 11:37 AM

Just found out this morning that the Giants are calling up Matt Downs.

Congratulations to Matt. He deserves it.

Diamond Tide · June 16th, 2009, 12:02 PM

Thanks for the heads up JoJo. Congratulations to Matt for reaching his goal on making it to the Major Leagues. As you said JoJo a well deserved honor for Matt.

It was fun watching Matt progress through the Minor Leagues just by keeping up with his stats. Pure determination by Matt.

Diamond Tide

Tider in Illinois · June 16th, 2009, 04:39 PM

Thanks for the info JoJo.
Congrats to Matt. He certainly deserves it. Best of luck to him in "THE SHOW"
RTR

resmith · June 16th, 2009, 05:36 PM

JoJo, thanks for the post. What a great story, and I am really happy for Matt. Do you remember his first couple of years at Alabama? It seemed like we didn't know how to use him. That makes this call-up even more impressive in my mind. I hope that he can hang around for a long time.

bamajake · June 16th, 2009, 06:01 PM

That move, in my humble opinion, is long overdue.

Love the Ping · June 16th, 2009, 09:39 PM

Good for him. I hope he excels up there.

I also saw where Alex Avila is performing pretty well in AA, so he's making a pretty quick rise through the system.

crimsonkelly · June 16th, 2009, 11:51 PM

Sweet. Great for Matt.

JoJoforHeisman · June 17th, 2009, 12:44 AM

	Quote:	resmith
	Do you remember his first couple of years at Alabama? It seemed like we didn't know how to use him.

Despite hitting line drive after line drive during his first fall practice and in his handful of at bats in 2004, prior to his junior year he was flat-out told that he wasn't good enough to hit. He was ordered to not even pick up a bat and to concentrate on pitching full-time. It took Matt personally requesting an opportunity to swing the bat in the fall of his senior year for him to get another opportunity. An SEC championship ring, Northwest League Player of the Year honors, and All-Star recognition at two minor league levels later, he's in the Majors.

In 2005 we had a future Major League infielder sitting in the bullpen all season.

Love the Ping · June 17th, 2009, 08:28 PM

One of coach Wells' faults, IMO, is that when a player gets to campus (or sometimes before) he puts a label on that player and it is next to impossible to ever change that perception in his eyes.

It can sometimes explain why some players are given incredibly long leashes even though they fail consistently to produce and why others, who seem to perform every time they are given the opportunity, find that those chances are few and far between.

It often takes the player going to coach Wells and almost demanding face-to-face a chance to play. I know of this happening in several instances. JoJo mentioned one in Matt Downs. Another was Jeff Norris during his redshirt sophomore season and we saw that he was a fairly productive starter for some pretty good teams. But it's hard to shake that perception sometimes and in his case it was that he had a good curve but didn't throw hard enough to get out SEC hitters.