It’s been quite the whirlwind year for BJ Rosenberg. He was a South Atlantic League All-Star. He became one of the few players to double jump from Lo-A to Double-A. He played for Team USA in baseball’s World Cup in September (they defeated Cuba for the gold medal). And, less than two years after being drafted, he earned an invite to big league spring training.

Rosenberg began 2009 with the BlueClaws, going 7-2, 0.89, and did not allow a run in his last 28.1 innings with Lakewood. He was promoted to Reading in August.

We had a chance earlier this week to talk to BJ. Part one of the interview can be found here. And below is part two.

• Did you and Ernie Young do any trash-talking at the World Cup (Young managed Lakewood’s first playoff opponent, Kannapolis, and was a coach on the World Cup team. Their playoff series was going on at the same time as the World Cup training)?: We were going back and forth a little bit. I met him for the first time at the All-Star Game in West Virginia. He’s a great guy. We never made a bet, but we should have. I was pretty confident in our guys.
• Were you able to follow the games? Yes. It was pretty nervewracking. I listened to a few games on the radio. In Europe, it was very early morning when the games were going on. I couldn’t sleep not knowing what was going on. It was really cool, wish I could have been a part of it.
• Most valuable part of your time here (this question was sent over by Twitter follower): I think the last push right before the first half title. That was my first time really being in a playoff hunt. The games were down to the wire, we had to win. We’re watching the other scores, figuring out what we had to do knowing what they were doing. It was fun and a valuable experience.
• Was it hard for you knowing that you could have been promoted before you were? It would have been harder if I didn’t like everyone on the team, but I did. If it wasn’t as fun, then it might have been harder. I thought around the All-Star Break, when [Tyler] Cloyd went up, that it might happen. But when it didn’t happen then, I told myself ‘That’s OK.’ We’ll go win a championship. I definitely wasn’t upset because I wasn’t expecting [a promotion].
• If you go back to Reading, you could be re-united with pitching coach Bob Milacki…Yep. I was really excited when I heard that. He helped me a whole lot when I was there, especially with my slider.

(University of Louisville photo)

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 9:26 am and is filed under 2009 BlueClaws, Past BlueClaws, Q&As. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.