Marsh gets off to hot start with Owlz

After more than a year of being unable to play a competitive baseball game, Brandon Marsh is more than ready to put his bat-boy duties behind him. 
The Angels' third-ranked prospect started his professional career with the Rookie-level Owlz on Monday and has made great first and second impressions. He amassed four hits, three runs and two RBIs in Orem's 16-5 rout of Ogden at Lindquist Field on Wednesday.

"I haven't felt that adrenaline rush in like, forever," Marsh said. "When I saw all those people there and all the fans, just people there to like support us on Opening Day, it was just a relief-type feeling. It feels like I'm back in the game. I'm actually contributing to the team. It's just … it was a great feeling."
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The 19-year-old collected a hit and scored twice in the season opener Monday and is hitting .455 after his first 11 at-bats in the Pioneer League.
"Everything is like a job now to play baseball, which is weird to say, because I've never thought about that before in my life," Marsh said.
The lefty-swinging outfielder last played on May 23, 2016, when he led Buford to the Georgia High School Association AAAA Championship. Less than a month later, he was drafted in the second round by Los Angeles. The two sides didn't reach an agreement until a week before the signing deadline.
One of the things the parties couldn't see eye to eye on was a injury later discovered to be an asymptomatic stress fracture in his lower back. Marsh said he didn't feel any pain, but the team decided to hold him out for the remainder of the 2016 season.
"It was just precautionary to do the rehab course that I did," he said. "It wasn't fun. But it was for the best. Now I'm just getting back in the swing of things and it's feeling great."
Marsh is appreciative of everything the organization has done to help him progress as a ballplayer, beginning with the lifestyle adjustments.
"You walk into the clubhouse, you see what you have to do, you don't have anyone tell you what to do anymore. It's all on your own," he said. "They helped me out with a routine and a checklist that I go through every day when I hit, so that's been a huge help for me.
"Instead of working on the positives, I've been working on the weaknesses, so I can just even everything out."
A year away from playing in games gave Marsh the opportunity to make some mechanical adjustments as well. He's worked on getting his legs more involved in his swing.
"I was more just an upper body-swinging hitter and now I'm using the whole body," Marsh said. "It's just a lot of really small things that's helped me just perform and use my legs a lot more and hit balls a lot harder."
The center fielder bounced out in his first two at-bats against Ogden starter Adalberto Pena, but delivered a run-scoring single to right field against reliever Jairo Pacheco in the fourth. 
He came up against James Carter in the sixth and started a two-out, two-run rally with an opposite-field knock. He then swiped his first bag of the year and scored on a hit by Ryan Vega. 

"As the game progressed, we got better," Marsh said. "We first started off a little slow. Our hitters started to have better at-bats and seeing more pitches and making the pitchers work more."
He drove in another run with a base knock against Matt Ditman, shooting a liner up the middle to score Brandon Sandoval from second in the first of two consecutive five-run frames. He began the threat in the ninth with a one-out double over the head of center fielder Brayan Morales and scored again on a single by Vega.
"When we made them work more, we forced them to throw more balls over the plate," Marsh said. "That's when we just started swinging away and taking hacks and putting them in gaps."
Vega collected four singles in six at-bats, driving in a pair and scoring twice. The 20-year-old has gone 9-for-14 to begin his third season in Rookie ball. Harrison Wenson homered and singled twice, driving in three runs in his pro debut with Orem.
Cristian Santana homered, tripled and singled for Ogden, collecting two RBIs and two runs scored.