Its the first box score recap of 2012. Are you excited? I’m excited. The boxes are below the fold.
Monthly Archives: April 2012
Tyler Cloyd’s AAA Debut
As of 930 last evening, Tyler Cloyd believed he would be the opening day starter for the Reading Phillies. That changed quickly with a phone call and off he went to Lehigh Valley to make his AAA debut and what a debut it was. Cloyd pitched six perfect innings, dominating the Scranton Wilkes Barre Yankees, striking out 8. He threw just 73 pitches in his six innings, however because of early season pitch counts was removed still perfect.
Cloyd impressed last year without overpowering stuff, with his knowledge of “how to pitch”. That translated very well to the AAA level tonight and while I expect he is likely headed back to Reading in the short term, it would be surprising if substantial time were not spent in the Lehigh Valley by Cloyd by mid season.
Unexpected Surprise
In one of the stranger baseball events in recent memory, Lehigh Valley starter Dave Bush, the planned opening day starter has been suspended for five games for an incident that occurred in Spring Training against the Pirates. Following a homer, the next pitch Bush threw was high and inside, warranting ejection according to the umpire. ‘Pigs manager Ryne Sandberg mentioned there was some “unfortunate verbiage” between Bush and the umpire, and Bush was suspended.
Benefitting from the suspension is Tyler Cloyd, who was set to start on Opening Day for the Reading Phils. CLoyd, 24, had an outstanding year last year, first with CLearwater, followed by a lengthy stint in Reading. Cloyd was a combined 9-4 with a 2.77 ERA in 146 IP last season. I was a bit surprised about his placement at Reading to start the season, thinking based on his success in Reading and in the Arizona Fall League that a spot in the Lehigh Valley rotation was likely. Given this opportunity, it should be interesting to see how Cloyd responds.
Extended Spring Training Rosters
So here’s my totally unofficial guess at who’s still in Clearwater. Some of these guys are leftovers from the Spring Training Workgroups and may have been released and a couple are guys who were in the system at the end of last season but did not appear during Spring Training, so who knows if they’re still in the system. Obviously some of these guys will end up in Williamsport, some in Gulf Coast and some back in the DSL or VSL.
Catchers
Willians Astudillo
Liam Bedford
Angel Chavarin
Chace Numatta
Kevin Quaranto Continue reading Extended Spring Training Rosters
Lehigh Valley Roster Complete
The final three names have been added to the Lehigh Valley roster after final cuts were made from Phillies camp. OF Scott Podsednik, INF Hector Luna and P Raul Valdes will all be joining the IronPigs in time for opening night tomorrow. Congrats to much maligned Joe Savery for earning an opening day roster spot with the Phils.
Joe Savery has made the 25 man roster
That’s the word on the street, at least.
This site has been around for a little more than 5 years, and Savery’s story is probably the coolest thing I’ve seen since I started closely following the minor leagues like 10 years ago. He was close to calling it a career and retiring, he switched from pitcher to hitter, then switched back to pitcher, recovered 3-4 mph on his fastball, and is now on the opening day roster of the big league club.
No matter how good he ends up becoming or what role he carves out at the major league level, his story is a great inspiration for future players, and a good lesson that anything can happen in baseball, and even when you think you have a good idea of what is going to happen, you can still be completely surprised.
Congrats to Joe, and continued success.
Open Discussion: Week of April 2nd
Spring training is essentially over. The games start soon. This is exciting. My plan is to have one of these open posts every week, and I expect you’ll keep the random chatter unrelated to specific games or news stories in this post. I’ll again be providing nightly box score recaps, and also writing a few regular features and of course covering any big news and the like. I’m also going to spend some time updating all of the profile pages, time permitting. As I’ve done many times before, I’m going to ask that you behave and be nice to one another. We’ve carved out a really peaceful little corner of the internet here, and I want to keep it that way. As always, if someone is causing trouble, don’t feed them, just email me.
I appreciate everyone checking in this winter, even when there was really nothing to talk about, and I’m hoping the 2012 minor league season is the best yet in terms of this site. Thanks again for your support.
Phuture Phillies 