The Eastern League all star team, picked by staff, coaches and the media was named and three members of the 2012 Reading team were included. 26 year old 1B Darin Ruf, who has spent the entire season with Reading was the “no brain” pick of the three accumulating 33 HR and 92 RBI to go along with a .312 average in 128 games with Reading this year. Ruf is also the first player in Reading history to have 30 doubles and 30 HR in a season.

21 year old Tommy Joseph, a catcher, was acquired from the Giants organization earlier this year and had been playing for the RIchmond Spiders prior to the trade. Joseph is hitting .255 with 9HR and 43 RBI, and most impressive has thrown out 44% of runners attempting to steal.  Joseph was the starting catcher in the Futures Game this year and also a starter in the EL All Star game.

Cesar Hernandez, a 2B, was promoted to Lehigh Valley about a month ago after an outstanding first four months of the season in Reading. Hernandez, a member of the Phillies forty man roster and just 22, was hitting .304 in 103 games before him promotion to AAA.

Taking a look at the week from 8/17 thru 8/23:  (Note: Minimum of 11 AB’s to qualify for Hot Hitter and 6IP as a starter to qualify as a hot starter). Next Friday’s Hot or Not report will be the last of the season.

–Jesse Biddle certainly leads the talk this week, with the most impressive week of the year for any pitcher.  Coming in the final weeks of the season, this should silence doubters as he is having his best month with a considerable number of innings on his arm.

–Jon Pettibone is going to force the Phillies to take a serious look at him as the number 5 starter in 2013 if he closes out the season in Lehigh Valley with two or three more good starts.

–An outstanding week at the plate for many but Maikel Franco has really begun coming into his own with another outstanding week….And Cody Asche says, “take that Keith Law.”  Ok, he didnt really say that, but I did.

–Roman Quinn makes the hot hitter list with a bit lower batting average than others who didn’t make it because of his 9SB and 8RS this week. that simply can’t be overlooked.

–I got a first hand look at Brody Colvin this week and it wasn’t pretty. As soon as he made a mistake, it seemed his confidence was totally shot for the rest of the game.

–A welcome to the Hot Reliever list for newly acquired Ryan o’Sullivan, while JC Ramirez has thrown together consecutive appearances on the same list.

Hot Hitters: Maikel Franco (.464, 5R 2HR 9 RBI); Miguel Alvarez (.529, 4R HR 5RBI, 2SB); Cody Asche (.440, 4R 4HR 8 RBI); Tyson Gillies (.520, 7R); Roman Quinn (.333, 8R 5RBI, 9SB); Pete Lavin (.400, 5R HR 4RBI, SB); Zach Collier (.375, 7R 3HR 5RBI, 2SB); Angelo Mora (.400); Gabrial Lino (.400); Chris Serritella (.375, 6RBI);  Honorable Mention: Carmona, Martinez, Dugan, ALonso, Ruf, Pridie Continue reading Hot Or Not →