Back on January 16, Stephen Strasburg Tweeted news of a near-miss first hole in one, missing the cup by mere inches. The next day, Washington Nationals' 2011 third round pick Matt Purke was out fine-tuning his golf game:
Today, those those lessons apparently paid off -- Purke claims that he got his first ever hole in one -- photo above via @MattPurke47:
More importantly; how's Purke's left shoulder doing? Good enough to swing a golf club, obviously. Numbers-wise, his Arizona Fall League campaign wasn't exactly rosy -- 7 G, 1 GS, 7.1 IP, 12 H, 11 R, 13.50 ERA, 1 HR, 3 BB, 5 K, .353 BAA, including a disaster on October 21 against Surprise in which he got lit up for 7 runs on 5 hits and a walk in just a third of an inning -- but results weren't really the point of sending Purke to AZ. Guess we'll find out more about the shoulder soon enough, when Purke reports to big league camp with the Nats in just over three weeks. In the meantime, his golf game appears to be in mid-season form.
(Note to Purke: time to update your Twitter handle to reflect your new number, 50, thanks to NatGio.)
He's never seen the Godfather, obviously. Still a kid.
Posted by: NasFanTom | January 28, 2012 at 08:44 PM
Another reason to like NatGio. Already making connections with all his teammates, including the propsects.
+1/2St.
Posted by: Positively Half St. | January 29, 2012 at 08:01 AM