A look at the Lehigh Valley weekend. See below for summaries and notes.
Friday–AFter a strong start in which Lehigh Valley took the early lead on a Melvin Dorta RBI single and Ryan Vogelsong struck out 5 of the first 6 hitters he faced, things went downhill quickly in the 6-3 Lehigh Valley loss to Columbus. Columbus took the lead with a two run third, however Lehigh Valley quickly answered with two of their own on a Neil Sellers two run double. Columbus tied the game in the 4th, off of starter Ryan Vogelsong who went 5 inningd, giving up 3 runs on 5 hits. He walked 2 and struck out 9. The wheels fell off in the 8th when a crucial error by Luis Maza led to three unearned runs, sealing the game for the Clippers. Mike Zagurski (0-1) took the loss. Neil Sellers was 2-3 at the plate with 2 RBI’s, while Cody Ransom was 1-3 with 2 runs scored and 2 stolen bases.
Saturday–A very blustery night led to many an adventure in the field as Nate Bump took the hill against Columbus in Allentown. Lehigh Valley put one on the board in the first, when CHris Duffy scored on a Andy Tracy double play ball. Columbus quickly bounced back with a run in the third to tie the game. Two wind aided hits, and a series of defensive miscues resulted in three ‘Pigs runs in the 6th, the key hits being an RBI single by DeWayne Wise and another RBI single by Chris Duffy. Nate Bump(4-1) went six innings giving up one run on 7 hits. He walked one and struck out one. Columbus cut the Lehigh Valley lead to 4-2 in the 7th, but again, the ‘Pigs bounced back with one of their own in the bottom half to keep the 3 run lead. Scott Mathieson pitched a scoreless ninth, striking out two to earn his 5th save. Chris Duffy, Cody Ransom, and DeWayne Wise all had two hits for Lehigh Valley.
Sunday–The downswing for Lehigh Valley continued Sunday, with Columbus beating them 4-3 in 10 innings and taking 3 out of 4 in the series. Columbus opened the scoring with a two run fourth inning of of ‘Pigs starter Joe Savery, but the ‘Pigs bounced back with a run of their own on an Andy Tracy RBI single. A Dane Sardinha (3) homer in the 5th tied the game at 2. Joe Savery left after six, having thrown his first really effective game of the year, going 6 innings and yielding 2 runs on 7 hits. He walked 1 and struck out 5. Columbus took a 3-2 lead in the 7th, a lead that they held until the bottom of the ninth, when the ‘Pigs tied the game after Neil Sellers scored on a Melvin Dorta ground out. The combination of Ehren Wasserman on the mound for Lehigh Valley and Shelley DUncan at the plate for Columbus quickly spelled extra inning doom, as a DUncan double led to the 5-4 Columbus victory. Chris Duffy was 2-5 for Lehigh Valley, while Rich Thompson was 3-5 with a triple, run, and stolen base(6).
Notes: Ryan Vogelsong struck out a season high nine hitters on Friday.
–Lehigh Valley has blown leads in 11/16 of their losses.
–Lehigh Valley struck out looking five times Saturday evening.
—Cody Ransom had an 8 game hitting streak snapped on Sunday.
–AFter Brian Schneider was injured in Philly, Paul Hoover was quickly removed from the IronPigs starting lineup. He was replaced in the lineup by Dane Sardinha. When Schneider was placed on the 15 day DL by the Phils on Sunday, Hoover was officially activated by the Phils. Taking Hoover’s spot on the Lehigh Valley roster is Kevin Nelson, 29, who was the backup catcher in Reading. Nelson who saw a bit of time in Lehigh Valley last year, was hitting .179 in 28 at bats in Reading.
—John Mayberry was given the night off on Saturday and the day off Sunday after fouling a couple of balls off of his shin on Friday evening. He is day to day.
—Former Phuture Phillie file: Carlos Carrasco went 6 innings and gave up 2 runs on 6 hits against Lehigh Valley on Sunday. He walked two and struck out four. AFter a very rough first three games of the series, during which he went a combined 1-13 and made a couple of big fielding mistakes, Jason Donald went 3-5with a triple on Sunday. DOnald is seeing most of his time at 2B and is hitting .307.
Phuture Phillies 
Is Joe Savery a possible mid season call up when the Phillies need rotation help??
No
NO!
I see a BUMP in the road.
P.S At his age Ruf needs to move up.
Salvery is not a pitching prospect if he continues to throw 86, and walk guys, never regain his arm strength,
Don’t think they will need that much rotation help. September call-up, that is the question, as Savery’s draft class comes due for protection this off-season, and Savery and the previous draft classes’ high schooler holdover Domonic Brown are the only strong candidates for protection that I have seen, though not looking at possible eligibles from Latin America yet, though can’t think of any big priorities offhandfrom there.
The Lehigh Valley lineup was prospect free yesterday. I can’t bring myself to head there for a game with nobody to watch. Been to a few Reading games—-mostly independent league types.
Looks like I will have to plan the longer run over to Lakewood until Williamsport starts up.
You could always try watching the other team. Carlos Santana is among the ten best prospects in organized baseball and you missed a chance to watch him.
I saw Santana for the first time this weekend (3 games) and he was flat out impressive.
What impressed you about Santana?
Yeah, Santana sure looked good. Pedro Alvarez did as well, when Indianapolis was in town the previous series. I was there three games this weekend as well.
Credit where credit is due: Savery pitched OK yesterday. But this is probably as far as he gets, huh?
Mathieson’s fun to watch.
I now understand why we need non prospects at triple a to fill in if there are injury, guys like ranson, castro, but to have a triple a team without one prospect is dishearting to me. move brown to triple a lets see what we have.
Rocky, I think it’s fairly clear that the Phillies’ philosophy, like many teams but maybe more extreme in their case, is contrary to your wishes in that regard. Even when they have a lot of almost ready prospects, they tend to keep them at AA for the most part. Though I predict that Brown will be there mid season if he doesn’t hit a rough spot in AA. Can’t really see any other prospects in AAA this year. Even next year, some of the current better AA prospects will at least start in AA.
The trick is that even if we did have hot prospects at AAA, what would we do with them? Every position except RF is locked into guaranteed money through next season.
Tom–
He hit to all fields with alot of power…simply looks like a hitter, and was very strong behind the plate.
IronPig209–As far as Savery goes, his stuff is just not of the caliber where I can see him going further. If he has better command possible, but he throws a ton of pitches. I am a huge Mathieson fan, and continue to be unable to understand why he cant help the big club. Each outing he has been in the mid to high 90’s and hitters have been a major step behind him.
Savory seems to have a “hitch” in his delivery and appears his throws are all arm. He could increase velocity with mechanics adjustments. Watching him pitch is like watching an infielder take the mound and try to get the ball over the plate.
Agreed on Santana. Every ball he hit was solid. One miscue was a popped up bunt for an out but whoever decided to have this guy lay down a sac bunt should have his head examined.
Right now Bastardo and Mathieson are the best lefty set up and closer combination not in MLB. Good to see Savery outpitch Carrasco yesterday.
Alan if brown was in triple a and hitting maybe we would have more faith in moving victorino, to free up money to sign werrth, just like if madson wasnt hurt, I would look to move his 4.5 million to mathieson 400.000 more money to help sign werth, if we are going to sign werth we need to find out if brown is ready to play . and if mathieson can replace madson and if someone can take romaro place.and so on.
Three problems Rocky.
1. I don’t think the Phillies are in any hurry to move established, popular players on the team. If the Phils were to trade Victorino, the MLB fans would view it as a HUGE negative. Ditto Madson.
2. Neither Werth nor Brown can handle center field on an everyday basis. You would need to go outside the organization to fill that spot, and that would cost you a fair bit of money in the process itself. If you lose Victorino to keep Werth, that’s a downgrade.
3. Moving Brown (or any prospect) up a level does NOT make them a better player. Sure Brown looks nice in 61 AA games so far. But there are aspects of his game beyond hitting that he needs to work on. How’s his fielding? How’s his baserunning? You can’t evaluate guys on a small sample of raw hitting.