Monthly Archives: April 2009

Lakewood BlueClaws Weekly Report (4/9-4/13)

4. Lakewood

This season should be an especially interesting one for the Phillies low-A affiliate, the Lakewood BlueClaws, as the team has a good number of interesting prospects to keep an eye on. They also have one of the youngest teams in the SAL, fielding three 18-year-0lds – 2008 draft picks OFs Anthony Gose and Zach Collier, and C Sebastian Valle, a 2006 international free-agent signing – and featuring a fourth 18-year old, Jason Knapp, as the second pitcher in the BlueClaws rotation.

After a four-game series at home against the Delmarva Shorebirds in which the BlueClaws’ offense seemed to be asleep, they suddenly awakened in Monday’s game – the first of a three-game series at the Lake County Captains. Right now, their record stands at 2-3, good for 6th overall in the SAL Northern division, but only two games back of Delmarva.

Continue reading Lakewood BlueClaws Weekly Report (4/9-4/13) →

Pigs First Win

7. Lehigh Valley

Lehigh Valley won their first game today, 5-1 over the Nationals affiliate the Syracuse Chiefs.   Justin Lehr started and was fantastic, going 6.1 innings, allowing 3 hits, and one run,  walking one and striking out five.  He threw 85 pitches, 49 for strikes.

Lehr, 31, last played in the majors in 2006 with the Brewers, throwing in 16 games, going 2-1 with an ERA over 8.  Last year, he was in the Reds organization with AAA Louisville and had a good year going 6-2 with a 2.10 ERA in 16 games (8 starts).

Rich Thompson got the offense kick started in the first inning with a single, and quickly stole second.  He was knocked in by JJ Furmaniak on a two run single (Cervenak had walked).  The ‘Pigs third run came on an RBI double by Paul Hoover who scored John Mayberry (who had 3 hits and a walk). Lehigh Valley scored two more in the 9th on RBI singles by Andy Tracy and Rich Thompson.

Notes: Jason Donald had a tough day going 0-5, although he made a couple of nice plays in the field at shortstop.

—Rich Thompson was 3-5  with a run, RBI and a stolen base.  Mike Cervenak and Jason Ellison added two hits apiece.

—Andy Tracy was out of the starting lineup for the 2nd straight night after fouling a ball off of his foot on Saturday.

—Gary Majewski pitched a scoreless ninth for the ‘Pigs, striking out Corey Patterson to end the game.

–A moment of silence was observed pre-game for Harry Kalas and the flag flew at half staff.

Harry Kalas passes away

Other Stuff

Per Todd Zolecki’s twitter account, Harry Kalas has passed away. He apparently collapsed earlier and was taken to the hospital. I grew up listening to his voice, as I’m sure many of you did, and this is a monumental loss for not only the Phillies organization and Harry’s family, but for millions of fans out there who listened to baseball, NFL Films Productions, and everything else he was a part of. You’ll be sorely missed Harry, thanks for the memories.

Link.

Reading Phillies Weekly Report (04/09 – 04/12)

6. Reading

Welcome back to the weekly Reading Phillies report.  If you guys have any suggestions or certain features that you would like to see me include in these reports, then please speak up in the comments.  I will try to accomodate your ideas.  Hopefully, I will be able to get some firsthand photos and videos from Reading this season, and post them here on Phuture Phillies.  Thanks for reading and enjoy!

Continue reading Reading Phillies Weekly Report (04/09 – 04/12) →

A Closer Look: Freddy Galvis

A Closer Look, Galvis, Freddy

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We break from your regularly scheduled programming to introduce a new feature that will run from time to time on Phuture Phillies: “A Closer Look,” wherein we’ll break down some numbers, hopefully drum up a little discussion, and possibly even jump to a few conclusions on some players who may normally fall through the cracks of regular discussion.

I thought Freddy Galvis might be an interesting name to kick off this series with — especially given his Opening Night home run on Thursday.  Granted, he’s not your classic “under-the-radar” player, but he’s well outside the organizational Top 10, so let’s dive in and see what we can come up with.

Continue reading A Closer Look: Freddy Galvis →

Live from Coca Cola Park

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A very difficult first inning for Andrew Carpenter who gave up 3 hits including a 3 run homer to Juan  Miranda in a 24 pitch first inning.   The ‘Pigs go down in the bottom of the first after a lead off single by Rich Thompson.  Jason Donald did hit the ball hard, lining out to shortstop.   Continue reading Live from Coca Cola Park →

Quick Pig Notes

Other Stuff

With Carlos Ruiz on the disabled list, expect Lou Marson to see fairly regular time for the Phillies  over the next two weeks.  He had not been recalled to .

Orlando Guevara has apparantly been recalled to take Marson’s place on the roster.  Guevara had been in extended spring training in Florida. Guevara, 24, saw very limited time in both Reading and Lehigh Valley last year.

The Pigs set a franchise record last night, striking out 17 times.

Carrasco Shines

Other Stuff

In his first start of the year for Lehigh Valley, Carlos Carrasco was lights out going six shutout innings, yielding only four hits and didnt walk a batter.  Carrasco threw 85 pitches, 60 for strikes, while striking out four. He left after six, and the ‘Pigs bullpen immediately blew the 1-0 lead.  The game currently remains tied 1-1 in the bottom of the 7th.

—Lou Marson was pulled from the starting lineup on Friday, presumably because of the trickle down effect resulting from the strained oblique suffered in the Phillies game by Carlos Ruiz.  The Phillies are calling Ruiz day-to day, but an oblique issue is extremely difficult for a catcher. One would believe the Phils would have to make a quick decision on the possibility of placing Ruiz on the disabled list because of the risk of having only one healthy catcher.

Clearwater Picks Up Only Minors Opening Day WIn

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Threshers Defeat the Bluejays 5-2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Bluejays 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 0
Threshers 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 – 5 10 0

The Clearwater Threshers looked sharp in their 2009 season opener against the Dunedin Bluejays. Kyle Drabek got the opening night nod to take the hill, and looked good except for one rough inning in the fourth. Through the first three innings he had held the Bluejays hitless with his only blemish as a hit batsman in the first.

Continue reading Clearwater Picks Up Only Minors Opening Day WIn →

Lehigh Valley Report

7. Lehigh Valley

An abridged version of the weekly Lehigh Valley report with only the opener, to report on. The ‘Pigs got off to a rough start and a rougher end in their 11-3 opening night loss to Scranton.  The night began with a JJ Furmaniak error leading to two unearned runs for the Yanks in the first, before Kyle Kendrick settled down to go four innings yielding only the two unearned runs on four hits.  He walked three and struck out one.  Kendrick threw 82 pitches, 50 for strikes and was pitching out of trouble for most of his four innings.  The ‘Pigs got back into the game in the second inning on an RBI single by Furmaniak, who had three hits on the night.  Pablo Ozuna followed that up with a two run single in the fourth inning, giving the ‘Pigs a short lived 3-2 lead.  The floodgates opened in the fifth inning with Dave Borkowski (0-1) giving up two runs, and then John Ennis getting rocked in the 6th giving up five more.  Lehigh Valley was unable to put anything together after that point and dittoed their opening day loss to the Yankees last year. 

Continue reading Lehigh Valley Report →