Houston Astros Minor Leaguer Has Impressive Debut

After Dallas Keuchel‘s performance on the mound for the Houston Astros on Saturday afternoon, nobody was going to top that, right? Keuchel pitched a complete game shutout, striking out a career-high eleven in the Astros’ 3-0 win over Chicago. Yet, it was an Astros minor leaguer that may have had the best day.

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Derek Fisher, last year’s first round pick (37th overall) made his debut in High-A Lancaster last night and boy did he put on a show. Fisher went 4-for-6 with three homers, a double and TWELVE rbi. I guess the only gripe we can make is that he didn’t reach base every time up, and the two outs he recorded were via the K, but that just means he’ll be right at home in Houston.

In his time with Low-A Quad Cities prior to his promotion, Fisher was batting .305 with six home runs and 24 rbi while holding a .386 on-base percentage. In one game with the JetHawks Fisher totaled half of his power stats that took him 39 games to accumulate with the River Bandits.

The California League where the JetHawks play is known as an offensively heavy league, so there is plenty of reason to believe that Fisher should continue to mash the ball in the coming weeks. While the Houston Astros have been on a promotion frenzy in the early going this season, Fisher could run into some trouble because of the position he plays. Brett Phillips, another promising player with the JetHawks, also roams the outfield grass in Lancaster and has been there a bit longer. There are also plenty of other options already on the major league team as well as in each of the levels above Lancaster, so in the immediate future a call-up is unlikely.

Instead, we could see Fisher take the more traditional route of actually playing games at each level before getting the call to join the major league club. There is a good chance that Fisher could receive another promotion to Double-A Corpus Christi before season’s end, but that is likely as far as he’ll go in 2015, which would still be pretty impressive.

Regardless of where he ends up this season, Fisher is a player that fans should keep an eye on.

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