Joey
Lorenzini

The past two times I’ve got to see Lorenzini, he’s had an outing where he was dominant and the strikeouts were flowing, and I’ve also seen him not have his best stuff but still find a way to be competitive. Today, Lorenzini was back to his original self, he was cruising his whole outing staying under 75 pitches on the day. The Whitney offense had a tough time catching up to Lorenzini’s heater, lots of late contact into the opposite dugout, and the off-speed was working in the zone, as well as a chase pitch. Lorenzini doesn’t have the easiest delivery to get timing on, especially if the hitters are in the left-handed batter's box. The best way to describe it would be uncomfortable, it's a funky motion mixed with polished mechanics. His fastball and slider tunnel out of the same arm slot making it difficult to see the spin. He didn’t throw in the changeup as much as he’s used to, the newly developed splitter was taking the place of that. The main combo was the FB/SL mix, the heater was sitting between 86-89 MPH T90, the slider was working between 80-81 with some sharp bite to it. Lorenzini played efficiently through five innings, only surrendering three hits, the southpaw would only give out three free passes and managed to strike out six of the Whitney Wildcats. The Rocklin defense did a great job of backing up Lorenzini to get him out when he had runners on, but it was nice to see Lorenzini going the distance while keeping his pitch count manageable. Lorenzini's pitch ability is so valued because of his competitive nature on the mound you can't teach, it's fun to watch from the stands.

This will be the second outing Lorenzini has thrown this year, his last one was electric against Roseville High School a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, this outing wasn’t so electric as Lorenzini went two innings, two hits, five earned runs, three walks, and two strikeouts. The command was off early and when in the zone, the West Park offense managed to punish his mistakes over the plate. There were times during the game where Lorenzini still flashed swing and miss stuff, the fastball was still up to 91 MPH sitting in the 88-90 range. His CH/SL mix was still sharp, relying on his secondaries when the FB command wasn’t there. The beauty of this game is that he gets to go out and step on a mound next week and do it all over again, one bad outing is not going to determine the rest of the season. Lorenzini will bounce back and be ready to throw again his next outing.

Although the Rocklin Thunder didn’t come out on top in this game, Lorenzini surely pitched with conviction to the Roseville offense during the first three innings of this game. The crowd was filled with over 30 scouts in attendance and both arms were shining today. Lorenzini went three innings only surrendering one hit, one walk, and struck out six. The fastball was 89-91 T92 firm heater, SL was 79-81 mph the pitch was nearly unhittable. A new pitch was flashed from Lorenzini and it’s a splitter which was very deceptive at the 83-85 mph range and caused a lot of swing and miss. Could be another weapon and possibly a third pitch for him. The athletic lefty only went three innings but proved that all of his pitches were working. Did an exceptional job of keeping his composure throughout his whole outing, showed why he is the #1 ranked LHP in the state of CA.

Lorenzini opened the top half of the 5th inning just in front of Lauridsen and the athletic southpaw from NorCal put together for me one of the top performances showing his now stuff/feel to pitch with projection still in his profile. Lorenzini is a well built, but athletic at 6'5 215 lbs. who showed an easy athletic operation getting down the mound. Syncs his hands with his lead leg in the load portion before working down the mound with good direction and length to his stride. Arm has a full clean arm circle working to a 3/4 release point. Stays online well through the delivery utilizing his hips effectively and showing a good feel to block over the front leg. There is some recoil to his arm after release, but nothing of major worry. Lorenzini attacked the strike zone consistently showing feel to get his FB to the glove side with ease and able to locate to the arm side also. He showed solid present stuff fronted by a FB at 89-91 MPH that touched 92 multiple times in the outing which he backed up with a tumbling 83-85 MPH CHG and a SLD in the 78-79 MPH range which flashed swing/miss life. His pitchability is slightly above his stuff at present, but the ceiling for him looks to be high with future upticks in his stuff to go with that feel to pitch. Lorenzini faced 5 total hitters in his outing which started with a left on left battle against rising '26 Judah Ota out of Hawaii who he was able to get a FB in on his hands enough to stay off the barrel slightly and induce a flyball out to RF. From there he worked a good at bat versus Taytum Reeves pounding his FB on the inner half and just missed a borderline 3-2 call which resulted in the lone baserunner against him. After that he faced another left on left battle against Trenton Hertzog of Oregon which Lorenzini won with a looking K on a SLD that fooled Hertzog. Then he spun a SLD away from Brady Ebel to get a line drive out to LF and closed the inning by punching out Brayden Jaksa his fellow NorCal companion on a backfoot SLD that induced an uncomfortable chase swing out of the RHH. The frame, clean delivery, solid feel for 3 pitches, control of the strike zone all give you a strong starters profile projection for Lorenzini and if the stuff can tick up a bit as he continues to mature the ceiling for him looks to be pretty high.