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The Clearwater Threshers have been rolling lately, and the train just kept on going in Thursday night’s effort versus the Jupiter Hammerheads. The team picked up their fourth consecutive win, and their fifth in the last six games. Coming into the game the team had just eight home runs in the first 33 games of the year, however the club picked up four home runs on the night with Jake Blalock, Welinson Baez, Tuffy Gosewisch and Clay Harris each crushing a long ball all for the first time as a Thresher this season.

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We are now just over one month into the season and the Threshers have an 12-20 record so far. Over the last week the team faced the Ft. Myers Miracle for three games, followed by a four-game set with their first Eastern Division opponent of the year, the Brevard County Manatees. The Miracle began the Threshers week by sweeping them to give the Miracle a perfect 9-0 record against the Threshers this year, but the Threshers faired better against the Manatees with a 3-1 series record.

The team began the season with the pitchers leading the team in production, and the hitters lagging way behind. As the season has progressed the hitters have begun to get on track while the pitching has seen their stats fall in the league standings. The offense has the fourth best batting average in the league up from last place after week one, while the pitching has seen their ERA go from third best in the league after week one to the third worst at present.

Despite the good batting average the team has still got room for improvement. They are dead last in the league in all extra base hit categories, and have scored the third fewest runs as a result. On the positive side though, the hitters have the second most walks in the league and the second fewest strikeouts ranking them third in the league in OBP. As for the pitchers the team has the second most strikeouts in the league with 254, but has also allowed the second most walks with 122. Also the team lost their early season ace Antonio Bastardo to the AA Reading Phillies and has seen starter Carlos Monasterios placed on the DL this week. Read the rest of this entry »

Well last week’s report contained 8 games due to a 10:30 am game on Wednesday last week, so this week’s report includes only 5 games because of a day off for the league on Tuesday this week. Of course the big story for the week was Antonio Bastardo’s line in his game this past week. Overall the team went 2-3 on the week winning it’s last two games making it the first time this season the team has won two games in a row.

The offense has come to life a bit as of late coming up from last in the league in team batting average after week one, and next to last in batting average after week two to fourth (of twelve teams) in batting average currently. The offense has drawn the second most walks in the league, and has struck out fewer than all but one team in the league. Unfortunately the team is hitting without any power at all. The offense is last in slugging percentage, and in all XBH categories, last is RBIs, and next to last in runs scored as a result. (The odd thing is the team with the fewest runs in the league, the Tampa Yankees, are only one game out of first in the division.)

For the most part pitching remains the team’s strength and they lead the league with four shut outs so far this year, and have allowed the second fewest runs. The team has the third most strikeouts in the league with 197, but has also allowed the second most walks with 99. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite having given up just four runs in four games while striking out a league high 34 batters Clearwater Threshers’ starter Antonio Bastardo had earned just one win in his first four tries this year. On Sunday afternoon he would be given his fifth chance to earn a win, and he certainly made the most of his outing. Antonio had his best outing of the year going 8.0 innings and striking out 13 Yankees in the process both season highs for him. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s Clearwater Threshers report includes a bonus 8 games for the week thanks to a 10:30 am game on Wednesday that I was able to include here. Fortunately it was able to add another win to put them at a still disappointing 3-5 since my last report. As I mentioned last week it continues to be the pitching that is helping Clearwater out while their hitting as a team remains a disappointment to this point in the year.

Despite the poor team record there are some prospects on the team putting up terrific numbers. As I mentioned the pitching is carrying them to this point so I’ll touch on that first. Read the rest of this entry »

The Clearwater Threshers continue to struggle with a record of 4-8 on the season.  The pitching has by far been the team’s strength as they have the 4th best ERA in the league at 3.32 and the 3rd most strikeouts with 94.  Unfortunately their hitting has kept them from winning very many as they are dead last in the league in hits, and slugging percentage with only 20 extra base hits on the year. 

Antonio Bastardo and Joe Savery have lead the way for the starting pitchers each posting impressive 0.90 ERAs on the year while Adrian Cardenas (.347), Matt Spencer (.302) and John Urick (.300) are the only Threshers hitters batting .300 or better with five players languishing at .200 or below.

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Matt Spencer celebrates after what would prove to be the game winning home run.

It’s not the normal night for Threshers news, but the pitching staff threw such a gem tonight, I thought the news was worth sharing.

The Clearwater Threshers came out on Friday night after being shut out for the first time this season on Thursday looking for some retribution. Antonio Bastardo took the hill for the team, and for five innings he held the Lakeland Flying Tigers on the runway never able to take off. He picked up ten Ks and allowed just three hits and three walks over that period.

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We’re now six games into this young season with the Threshers off to a slow start at 2-4 on the year. Five players: Adrian Cardenas, Quintin Berry, Gus Milner, Matt Spencer, and John Urick have played in every game, while six different pitchers: Joe Savery, Carlos Monasterio, Antonio Bastardo, Darren Byrd, Edgar Garcia and Dan Brauer have been handed the ball to start a game.

So far Adrian Cardenas has stolen the show for the team as he has hit safely in all but one of the games including a 3-4 and a 4-5 effort. He is currently hitting .417 with 3 doubles, a stolen base and a team best 4 runs scored. Read the rest of this entry »

Alright gang, here are this week’s updated minor league rosters. You can compare this to the week 3 roster and week 2 rosterand week 1 roster that I had posted earlier if you would like.

Quite a few cuts all in around in the minors this week, with one more round left to go this week before minor league rosters are finalized next Monday.

I’ll keep on the lookout for each new officially posted roster and keep them updated here as needed.

I don’t know how much of a limb I am going out on to project this, but I have updated my Clearwater Threshers website with this (click here) as my projected 2008 line up. The projection is based on the latest 2008 ST roster mixed in with a little intuition. I’m guessing I’ll have about 20 of the 25 players correct, with a few free agent signings thrown in at the last minute just to mess things up and maybe a few other moves in the mix.

I hit the Carpenter Complex to check out the first day of minor league games.  It was the Clearwater (Group 3) team and the Lakewood (Group 4) teams against the Orioles.  Nothing of terrific interest to report except that I did pick up the newly updated minor league rosters.  This version has the guys broken out into five groups not four like the previous version that I had posted a while back. Read the rest of this entry »