Storm Chasers' Farrell gets his redemption

Luke Farrell came to the ballpark on Saturday looking for some redemption.
"I made some mistakes that on other days you're not going to get punished as badly as you did," he said, referring to his previous start in which he surrendered 11 runs over five innings. "But that's baseball and that's the way it goes. The only thing I can do is try to prepare for this next start, to come and make up for it."
The Royals prospect achieved that goal by striking out eight over seven innings in Triple-A Omaha's 10-0 rout of Round Rock at Werner Park. He allowed three hits and a walk.

Gameday box score
"The start of the game, Andy Hawkins, our pitching coach, and Cam Gallagher, our catcher, and I just got together and came up with a pretty good game plan," Farrell said. "Between the fastball and slider, I think I was able to keep guys off-balance pretty well. And I mixed in curveballs and changeups when we needed to."
The 25-year-old right-hander came out of the gates dealing, striking out five over the first two innings while his offense provided him with a 6-0 lead.

"Between that and jumping out to an early lead, you can walk up to the mound with a lot less pressure," Farrell said. "Getting that swing and miss early is definitely a confidence-booster and I think it just kind of established from pounding the zone as much as we can."
Between the fifth and seventh, the Northwestern University product faced the minimum, despite allowing a single and a walk.
"I got a bunch of good plays up the middle from [Raul] Mondesi and [Ramon] Torres, turning a few double plays to keep me out of innings and keep my pitch count down and stay in the ballgame," Farrell said.
The 2013 sixth-round pick needed only 10 pitches to get through his final frame, but that came after a long wait in the dugout while the Storm Chasers were busy putting up four more runs.

"I just try to keep myself loose during those long breaks," he said. "But you're never going to say anything bad about a big inning from your offense. To pitch with a lead, it's huge for a pitcher."
The scoreless start was Farrell's first since July 16 against Salt Lake. He opened this season 4-1 with a 3.96 ERA before he was tagged by Reno on Sunday.
Brian Flynn and Al Alburquerque both tossed a scoreless inning to close out Omaha's fifth shutout.
Mondesi went 2-for-4 in his second straight three-RBI game, while Torres, -- the Royals' No. 30 prospect, collected three hits along with Garin Cecchini.