No. 10 Yankees prospect Richard Fitts makes big Somerset debut

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BRIDGEWATER — Even though he got hit hard a few times, Richard Fitts’ first game in Double-A for Somerset on Friday night at TD Bank Ballpark was ranked among big debuts.

The No. 10 Yankees prospect pitched against Harrisburg until the fifth inning and gave up only one run while striking out eight batters (six swinging) and not walking anyone.

Richard Fitts gets the most attention

Tyler Hardman’s two-run home run in the eighth inning helped the Patriots win 6-5 and keep their hopes alive of winning the Eastern League again. But Richard Fitts gets the most attention.

Richard Fitts left the game after giving up a single to start the fifth. Of his 72 pitches, 50 of them were strikes. On Wednesday, he admitted to having thought of going with 75 pitches in his first start.

The right-hander was taken in the sixth round of the 2021 draft out of Auburn. Richard Fitts has a four-seam fastball, a slider, and a changeup. He also throws a two-seam fastball and a changeup.

“I’m a fastball pitcher, so that’s something that I want to take a lot of pride in,” Fitts said. “Having the Yankees being so analytical, it’s really cool to throw a fastball Day 1 when I get here after being drafted and seeing all the weaknesses that I have in it, kind of see where I can get better. Last year about halfway through the season I took a step back and really met with our coordinators … and I had immediate results. That’s when I started pitching better. I was getting a little bit more vertical break, just off the analytics, and obviously a little bit more velo with it, too.”

Fitts brings talent to the Yankees farm

His first year with the team was a whirlwind. Richard Fitts spent time in both Low-A Tampa and High-A Hudson Valley. In 17 starts at Tampa, he had a 5.01 ERA, but in 33 innings at Hudson Valley, he only gave up two earned runs (five starts).

Richard Fitts’ most noteworthy feature was his walk rate (1.6 per nine innings), which ranked sixth in the whole minor league system. In 112 innings, he struck out 131 hitters.

The Yankees clearly thought Richard Fitts surpassed his performance to some level since the 23-year-old is already at Double-A.

“I try to keep a very level mindset — not get too low,” Fitts said. “I didn’t want to get too discouraged because I was throwing some really good pitches when I was struggling, but there was some weak really getting through the infield. Just hitting it where they’re not basically. And then I started to figure out what pitches to throw in certain counts, and that was kind of the difference.”

Watching the top three prospects

Trey Sweeney, Jasson Dominguez, and Everson Pereira, the first three batters in Somerset’s Opening Day lineup, are all in the top six of MLB Pipeline’s rankings of Yankees prospects.

Sweeney, who will be a first-round pick in 2021 and played in 16 Double-A games last year, had an all-around good game. He hit a single to the opposite field, a double to center, walked, and stole two bases. He also had great range when he caught a ground ball up the middle to keep a runner from scoring in the third.

Dominguez went 0-for-3 with a walk, a stolen base, and a run scored. Sweeney and Dominguez both scored when Pereira hit a double off the wall in center field in the fourth. Pereira went 1-for-4 and struck out three times.

New kid on the block

Lefty Lisandro Santos replaced Richard Fitts and tossed 27 pitches, getting four outs while giving up one earned run in the fifth when he walked one hitter, struck another, and allowed a single. Before leaving the game in the sixth, he got one batter out.

Santos, a 24-year-old Dominican, spent the previous seven years with the Braves before signing a minor league deal with the Yankees in December. He had 102 strikeouts in 66 innings between High-A and Double-A last year, which put him in the league of prospects to watch.

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