SEASON SUMMARY

22-year-old right-handed reliever Jorge Julio started the season at Bowie, was called up and hit hard in two appearances, was farmed back out and, after a stint at Rochester, came back to Baltimore in July for one appearance, went back down again and was recalled for good in mid-August.  In his three big league stays he managed a total of 18 appearances, 15 of them from August 18 on.  In his time with the big club Julio showed flashes of real promise and may well get a chance to make the team next spring.  

Julio throws hard and used this part of his game to great effect, fanning 22 batters in 21.1 innings.  But he allowed 25 hits (10.6/9IP), 10 of them for extra bases, and walked nine, none of them intentionally.  That's 14.8 baserunners per nine innings, which is a bunch.  Of course this was Julio's first trip to the show, and that needs to be taken into account.

In the extended stint at Rochester (34 appearances), Julio showed some pretty good results for a still young pitcher:  48 strikeouts in 43.1 innings.  Bue he also showed that a bit more seasoning may be necessary:  he walked 19 and allowed 39 hits--not horrible numbers, but not phenomenal ones as well, much like his big league results.  The bad news is that Julio may well  not be ready.  The good news is that he's tantalizingly close, and that he certainly has the ability to help the Orioles in the bullpen.

TO CONTRIBUTE SIGNIFICANTLY NEXT YEAR, HE MUST:

1) cut back on the walks by, say, 1/4 to 1/3

2) drop off on the long hits allowed

3) take the next step; Julio isn't far away from being a solid (at least) big league pitcher, and he's young enough to give hope that he'll be one for a good long while

NOTES

Opponents were .287/361/.494 off Julio in 2001; obviously that needs a cross-the-board improvement...the misleading nature of a relatively limited sample size:  in his two early season appearances, opponents touched him for .556/.692/.1.222 (not typos); in his 16 later appearances the numbers were a lot more encouraging:  .256/.310/.410....didn't make many mistakes with runners in scoring position (.175 BA against in 40 ABs), but when he did, they were doozies (6 extra base hits allowed).