Lehigh Valley Weekly Report

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A crazy week in Allentown with a continued roster makeover, some by injury, and some by design.  Domonic Brown’s Lehigh Valley debut definitely added an atmosphere of excitement with simply his presence, and his play this week added to the aura of what appears to be a star in the making. Lehigh Valley went 3-4 on the week, and are now 32-48, in 5th place of the Northern Division of the International League, 16 games behind division leading Scranton.

‘Pigs leaders (thru 6/30) Hitting: Cody Ransom is 8th in AB’s (291), 3rd in runs (47), 3rd in K’s (88), 3rd in homers (16), and 4th in RBI’s (51), John Mayberry is 6th in runs (45) and 10th in K’s (70); Andy Tracy leads the league in walks (49), is 9th in SLG (.511) and 2nd in OBP (.411). Pitching: Nate Bump is tied for 3rd in Wins (7), 6th in IP (95.1),4th in ERA (2.55), tied for 3rd in starts (16); Brian Mazone is tied for 3rd in starts (16), 7th in IP (93); Scott Mathieson is 5th in saves (14); Joe Savery is 5th in BB (38); Ryan Vogelsong is 6th in BB (37).

Monday–Another one run loss for Lehigh Valley, this one of the walk off variety in the 3-2 Durham win over Lehigh Valley on Monday, as Durham took 3 out of 4 against the ‘Pigs to close out the road trip.  A two run double in the 9th by former ‘Pig JJ Furmaniak against Ryan Vogelsong (2-5) completed the Durham comeback.  Lehigh Valley jumped out to a 2-0 lead on back to back RBI singles by Domonic Brown and Melvin Dorta, as Drew Carpenter pitched 6 shutout innings, leaving the game with a 2-0 lead. A Durham run in the 7th cut the lead to 2-1, prior to the Furmaniak double. Melvin Dorta had a big game at the plate going 3-4 with an RBI.

Tuesday Game One–A rehab start for JA Happ and the Allentown debut of Domonic Brown in a game against Rochester that was suspended in the 2nd inning with no score back on April 16th.  The ‘Pigs came through with a 5-4 walkoff  win.  Rochester got on the board in the fourth with a run, which was quickly answered with a four run 4th by Lehigh Valley. A John Mayberry Rbi single, was followed by a long two run homer by Andy Tracy (11), which gave the ‘Pigs a 3-1 lead.  ANother run was tacked on when Domonic Brown singled, stole second, advanced to 3rd on a throwing error, and scored on a Neil Sellers sac fly.   The less than sharp JA Happ gave up a run in the 5th, making it 4-2 ‘Pigs. Happ left having gone 4 innings and giving up 2 runs on 5 hits. He walked 4 and struck out 4 over his 100 pitches.  Lehigh Valley took the 4-2 lead into the 8th, when D’Angelo Jiminez smashed a two run homer off of Alex Concepcion to tie the game. The 9th inning featured a two out single by Domonic Brown, who then scored from first in a Neil Sellers single which was bobbled in CF.  Along with his hitting line of 2-3, 2r, sb, rbi, Brown also threw out a runner trying to tag from 2nd to 3rd on a fly ball. Scott Mathieson(2-0), who struck out the side in relief, got the win.

Tuesday Game Two–Despite Domonic Brown’s first homer in AAA, Lehigh Valley lost the nightcap to Rochester 3-2 on Tuesday evening.  Brown’s blast in the 2nd inning gave Lehigh Valley the early 2-0 lead, but Rochester quickly evened things up with a two run third.  The game stayed 2-2 until a Toby Gardenhire single won the game for the RedWings in the 7th off of reliever Oscar Villarreal (0-2). Brandon Duckworth started and pitched very well, going 6 innings and giving up 2 runs on 4 hits. He walked 1 and struck out 8.

Wednesday–Lehigh Valley closed out their series against Rochester in impressive fashion with a 6-2 victory on Wednesday evening.  A Paul Hoover RBI single got the ‘Pigs on the board in the 2nd and they followed with a 3 run third inning, when Domonic Brown crushed a three run homer, his second in as many nights to give the ‘Pigs a 4-1 lead. The ‘Pigs and RedWings exchanged runs in the 4th, the Lehigh Valley run coming on a solo homer by newly acquired OF Chris Aguila, that made it 5-2. Another Lehigh Valley run made it 6-2 in the 6th, and it was the end of the night for starter Nate Bump who pitched 6 effective innings, giving up 2 runs (1 earned) on 7 hits. He walked 3 and struck out 5. Another implosion by Ryan Vogelsong, led to an ugly 8th, however Scott Mathieson came in to shut the door in the 9th, earning his 14th save.

‘Pigs Prospects: Domonic Brown was simply awesome in his first week with Lehigh Valley.  .458/.500/792 in 24 AB’s with 2 HR 6 RBI and a SB. He additionally made several nice throws from the outfield.  I won’t waste your time with a string of superlatives.  Just know he was outstanding.

Andrew Carpenter threw 6 shutout innings in his start this week, allowing 5 hits.  Carpenter is now 6-6 with a 3.47 ERA in his 15 starts this year.  Despite some bumps in the road, Carpenter continues to be a very consistent starter at the AAA level, which now span 40 starts. In June, Carpenter has gone 1-2 with a 3.24 ERA in his 6 starts, with the opposition hitting .250 against him.

Scott Mathieson has settled back into his role as the ‘Pigs closer making 3 appearances over the past week and allowing 1 earned run in 3 innings.  He saved two games. Over those 3 innings, he struck out 5 and didn’t walk a batter.  For the year, 3-2 with a 2.34 ERA in 30 games, 14 saves.  .198 opp. avg. 34.2 IP 14BB 43K, 1.09 WHIP.

John Mayberry has been struggling as of late with his line now at .250/.316/.428 in 264 AB’s.  He has 10 HR 41 RBI and 7 SB.  Over the last 10 games, Mayberry is at just .111 and has a lone RBI in 36 at bats.  This is problematic for both Mayberry and the Phils who I am sure were hoping for some enhanced trade value around deadline time.

Mike Stutes has now pitched in four games for Lehigh Valley and has had a rough go of it, in his first few weeks, throwing 5 innings and giving up 4 runs on 9 hits.  He has walked 5 and struck out 3.  Still just two weeks in, but an ERA of 7.20 and a WHIP approaching 3, leaves much room for improvement.

Notes: Lehigh Valley is now 8-24 in one run games.   

–1B Andy Tracy, SS/3B Cody Ransom, P Nate Bump and P Scott Mathieson were all named to the IL All Star Team and will represent the IronPigs at the game which is taking place in Allentown on Tuesday July 13th.

—Melvin Dorta has hit in 18 of his last 21 games and is hitting .342 over that span.

Transactions: A series of transactions this week.  Greg Dobbs stint for Lehigh Valley lasted 17 at bats, as he was called back up to Philadelphia.  SS Brian Bocock was called up to Philadelphia, due to the injury to Chase Utley in Philadelphia. OF Wily Taveras was released after his 96 at bats with the IronPigs.  Infielder Neil Sellers was called back up to Lehigh Valley after about a week in Reading.  Pitcher Ty Taubenheim was called up from Reading, as well, and is expected to take a spot in the Lehigh Valley rotation.

After playing both games on Tuesday two players short, infielder Keoni DeRenne was called up from Clearwater to take a spot on the roster.

34 thoughts on “Lehigh Valley Weekly Report”

  1. Phillies looking at Dan Haren, Diamonbacks are scouting Phillies farm systems.

    Although I don’t understand why, since we aren’t losing games because of pitching, it’s because we can’t hit the damn ball. So adding more pitchers at the expense of our bats seems to be the opposite of the solution.

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  2. I see the annual “prospect harvest” coming soon. Not looking forward to it, to be honest with you and I’m certainly not at the point yet where I trust Ruben’s judgment on these things. I understand that teams generally do not have a lot of depth, but it seems to me that there is a veritable chasm between Utley, Rollins, Polanco and someone Juan Castro.

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  3. Dr. Steve, it looks more and more like Happ will go to minors for at least a while as he has demonstrated poor velocity and command in his rehab starts in the minors. Kendrick has been very inconsistent all season. Unfortunately, there is no pitching prospect equivalent to Domonic Brown at AAA or even AA in our system. That would be the reason that they are looking for a starter. There is also a shortage of middle infielders with power at Lehigh Valley and Reading; with Utley out for a while, I would expect them to also try to acquire a second baseman.

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  4. There is almost no team in the Majors that can replace an Utley, Rollins or Polanco. Teams don’t just have players of that caliber just waiting around for an injury. They either trade them for something they need or trade the player blocking them if they are that good.

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  5. Of course you can’t replace Utley, Rollins or Polanco easily. But that’s not my point. My point is that the back-up player they have is barely a major leaguer. You have to do better than Juan Castro or Eric Bruntlett (the last few years).

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  6. Come Catch be more realisitic.
    Who backed up Arod last year when he missed the beginning of the season?
    Who backs up Pujols? Who backs up Mauer?
    There aren’t great players just sitting on the bench behind all-stars. No good free agent would want to go somewhere where they are backing someone up that is going to play 150 games, so you are either stuck with a young minor leaguer (i.e. Donald whom was traded last year) or a journeyman MLB player, ala castro or valdez.

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  7. Finnel
    While I never thought the injuries would this bad, I have been saying there was no backups at all for this year. To the “baseball gods” it was an invitation to disaster. The club went years with one maybe two injuries. What in the hell did they think was going to happen.

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  8. The reason why they are backups is because they are not good enough to be starters. Nobody has decent backups that can replace the loss of a starter. Absolutely nobody. And for the sake of argument, even if the backup is good, he knows he’s good and wants above average backup pay. It wouldn’t make fiscal sense to pay a backup more than say $2M. In a regular year a backup would be lucky to get 100 at-bats. For an example, look at the Mets last year. They lost Beltran, Reyes, Maine, Wright and they completely tanked. Consider the Phillies lucky that we’re still over .500 with all of our troubles.

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  9. Again though wheels if you are a free agent, do you want to sit for 150 games? If you want to talk about the lack of MLB ready players at 3B, SS, 2nd base in our Milb system fine, we had donald and he got traded. We have Ransom, whom backed up Arod (not well) last year, and one of Charlie’s favs Dobbs . I’m not sure who/what you guys think we should have at each spot. Last year we were thin at C and 4th OF, we got Schnieder and Fransisco. There are only so many resources out there and servicable back ups are hard to find.

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  10. Even though I prefer the patient approach, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the phillies to call up brown now. With all of these injuries, the phillies need a lift and offensive help anyway way they can get it. They could insert Brown in left field in a week or so and the offense would get a boost.

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  11. Once you call Brown up thats it. He has to stay up. He has to play everyday. You can’t just use him as a boose for a week to ten days.

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  12. I am going to second you on this, brown needs to replace ibanez now. The time for half measures is over.

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  13. If we are really looking at Haren, then they must have someone to take on blanton contract, makes no sense otherwise,

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  14. exactly mikemike. Taking Harens contract with out dumping someone like Blanton or Ibanez pretty much assures no resigning of Werth.

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  15. With the way he he is hitting, the phillies may not be able to last long without someone like him. They are hurt and fading and they need to make a move. Brown could help salvage this season and help us stay afloat while utley and polanco are gone. We could bat him 2 or 6 an he would be a force. This isn’t time to be indecisive. I am very protective of prospects and would rather keep Brown down, but at this point, we may have no better options when we are at a point where options are needed.

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  16. Max I like brown, but you can’t put that kind of pressure on a kid, to say he could salvage the season,to me is a bold statement to make

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  18. I agree about Ibanez. His swing has never looked so awful – he’s so obviously trying to pull everything and hit it as hard as he can…resulting in a grounder to second every time. It’s basically like watching the sadness that was Pedro Feliz at the plate the past two years.

    .237 and counting isn’t gonna cut it. If they plan on making Raul a starter next year things are going to get really ugly.

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  23. Do you have a link. I don’t want Haren but I would offer a package of May, Gose, Rizzoti, and Ramirez. We could save our top guys and we have Gillies so Gose could be expendable. Sell Rizziti high and Ramirez is a good pitching prospect.

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  24. You said:

    “Cosart
    May
    Valle
    Mathieson

    for Haren ”

    My response – “Blech!!! It’s horrible.”

    I’m going to lose interest in the team in a big way if we make that trade. But would it surprise me? No, Nothing surprises me anymore. When Ruben Amaro decides he wants a player, pretty much anything can happen and almost everyone is in play.

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  26. Why not trade those guys for Haren? Cosart apparently has arm issues, May can’t locate a ball to save his life for whatever reason this season, Valle isn’t lighting the world on fire, and Mathieson is a guy coming off two TJ surgery. If we can get Dan Haren for that we’d be crazy not to take it.

    Also, if were a ridiculous amount of games out by the trade deadline, why not get something for Werth rather than nothing? Sure you’ll get the arb picks but if you can get an elite level prospect take it.

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  27. Poopy – I don’t understand these comments. You want us to trade many of our best prospects to get Haren, presumably strengthening the rotation for a playoff run and yet you want us to trade our number 5 hitter for a prospect, thereby weakening the team for a playoff run. Either you go for it and keep Werth or you trade Werth and try to build the team. By the way, if the team does decide to trade Werth (I doubt they do this), I think you’d have a demand a high price in return, knowing they can get some great picks for him if he doesn’t sign.

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  28. The point is getting Haren for the long run. He’s signed for the next few years and still relatively young (29) so even if this year is conceded we start next year with a top three of Halladay/Haren/Hamels along with whatever prospects we’d get from Werth.

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  29. But Haren isn’t cheap. They are better off developing their other prospects, trading for a much younger player, or signing someone else as a free agent. I am not a fan of that move if it costs so much in prospects. If this team is to become dynastic, it has to develop young players. I think the trade you propose would be disatrous.

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  30. Not sure if it has been posted, but Kevin Goldstein has also named Dom Brown as the #1 prospect in all of baseball:

    1. Domonic Brown, OF, Philles
    Why He’s Here: Now that the power is playing, there is nothing he can’t do. A .318/.391/.602 line at Double-A Reading had it all, with 15 home runs and 12 stolen bases in 65 games to go with a solid walk rate and no platoon issues. You can’t find a player at the upper levels with a better combination of athleticism, performance, and room to get better.
    Nitpicking: Brown’s speed is just a tick above average, and he’ll likely end up more of an athletic slugger than a true power/speed threat.
    Future: With Raul Ibanez, Shane Victorino, and Jayson Werth, there’s just no room for Brown in the big leagues right now. Yes, Ibanez is horrible, but the Phillies aren’t going to bench that contract. Brown will likely be up in September, and likely replacing Werth in right field next year when the incumbent departs via free agency.

    http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=11354

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  32. Believe it or not I would think kendrick has some vale if teams look at his numbers after the 1st 3 or 4 starts they are pretty decent and he is cost effective. If Happ comes back and does ok combined with his year last year and cost effectiveness, I think he has some value in a trade so I think we would be better served to include a package of KK, May, Ramirez, Gose-or Happ, May, Ramirez, Rizzotti. One of them would have to go when Haren comes anyway so why not trade one.

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  33. It’s funny how these guys like to say browns speed is average. Since when does the u of Miami recruit wr’s with avg speed or just a tic above?? Please people!

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  34. Trade Amaro Jr for Ed Wade, put Ed in charge of concessions and promote the peanut guy?
    Really all the same!

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