Every Monday, Minor Matters will run down the top 10 games of the Thunder's 2010 season. In a year that saw eight of Baseball America's 16 pitchers (excluding Mike Dunn and Arodys Vizcaino, who were out of the organization) in their top 30, not to mention Austin Romine and Brandon Laird, there are plenty of good choices to go around.

No. 8 - Andrew Brackman debuts




















Recap: After a truly cringe-worthy season in 2009, this seemed like a make-or-break year for skyscraping former first-rounder Andrew Brackman. When the year began, Brackman's goal seemed to be throwing consistent strikes and letting his plus stuff do its work.

Here's what Nardi Contreras had to say when I asked about him in May:

"What he is doing is throwing strikes. He's learning now, because last year he didn't throw many strikes. He's throwing strikes now, and he's learning how to command. He needs to know how to command. He's throwing his curveball. He's learning the slider and the change-up, too. He's learning some other pitches to go along with his curveball and his fastball."

After a few blips early, he went through a stretch of 39 1/3 innings during which he allowed just nine runs. He walked just six during that span. He had a bit of a blow-up during his last outing High-A (five earned in five innings) , but the decision was made, and Brackman was in Trenton five days later.

Link to Original Game Story

Reaction: “(He did) some good things out there, especially when he got settled. He’ll be fine. It may just take him an outing or two to get really, really settled here. But he’ll be fine.”
-- Tony Franklin

“I didn’t know they had those kind of hitters on that team, I was just kind of thrown into the fire. I just had to go out there and see what I could do. I felt comfortable. The mound here is a whole lot bigger than the one in Tampa, so I had to get used to it. But overall, I was pretty pleased.” -- Andrew Brackman

Afterward: That night didn't go quite as planned, and it took a little while for Brackman to adjust to the more mature hitters in Double-A. Once he did, he looked every bit of the first-round pick and four-year major league contract the Yankees used on him. From August 6 on he went 4-0 with a league-pacing 0.86 ERA. This offseason, New York picked up the first of his three contract options.