Was top draft pitching prospect Emerson Hancock’s rough debut a blip or something more?

University of Georgia right-hander Emerson Hancock was a consensus top-three prospect for the 2020 MLB draft coming into Friday’s start, which ended up being the second worst of his college career statistically, the worst if you consider the competition: 4 IP, 9 H, 6 R at home against Richmond.

It started as expected, with Hancock’s fastball sitting in the 94-96 mph range and hitting 97 mph in the first couple of innings, mixing in an above-average slider in the mid-90s and bringing out his plus changeup in the second. There also was an early walk and a hit batter, an infield hit and a couple of bloopers you could chalk up to bad luck. But in the fourth inning, he gave up back-to-back homers on center-cut mistake pitches, leading to the early exit.

Hancock’s execution was off all night and his body language wasn’t fantastic, but the stuff was close enough to expectation. He didn’t really dip below 93 mph, and while his changeup wasn’t a 70-grade pitch very often, it was plus multiple times. It’s generally not a good idea for amateur pitchers having execution issues to try to throw both a slider and a curveball, but Hancock doesn’t normally have execution issues.