After a 4-1 victory over Charlotte on Tuesday, Lehigh Valley is 60-58, and tied for 3rd place in the Northern DIvision of the International league, 1.5 games behind division leading Rochester and 2 games behind Pawtucket in the wild card race. The ‘Pigs remain on the road with games against Charlotte and Gwinnett thru next Monday.
‘Pigs leaders (thru Monday); Hitting: Cody Asche is 7th in AB’s(404); 4th in hits(119), 4th in RBI’s (68); Cody Overbeck is 9th in doubles (26), 7th in HR (18) and 4th in strikeouts(117) Cesar Hernandez leads the league in triples (8),is 5th in avg. (.310),is 8th in OBP(.375) and is 2nd in SB(29).
Pitching: Ethan Martin is 2nd in wins(11), 2nd in walks(67) and is 5th in strikeouts(107); Tyler CLoyd is 2nd in HR allowed (17)
News and Notes: Cody Overbeck has a 15 game hitting streak, during which he is hitting .356(21-59)
–The Lehigh Valley pitching staff have issues 469 walks, which is the highest walk rate in the IL.
–P David Buchanan was effective in his Lehigh Valley debut, pitching a much needed seven innings and giving up just 2 earned runs.
Leandro Castro walked for the first time in a month and a half (132PA) with a walk on Monday evening.
–3B Tyler Henson got off to a great start in Lehigh Valley with 4 homers in his first 4 games.
–In his last 31 games, OF Steve Susdorf is hitting .356 (36-101).
–With almost the entire Lehigh Valley bullpen in Philadelphia and the fact that Phillipe Aumont can’t throw strikes consistently, it appears BJ Rosenberg may get a shot in the closer role.
–With 21 members of the IronPigs being called up at one time or another to Philadelphia, a hat tip should go to ‘Pigs Manager Dave Brundage for keeping Lehigh Valley as competitive as they have been this year.
‘Pigs Prospects: Freddy Galvis has hit .291 over his last 27 games (30-103) after hitting just .190 in his first 11 games after being sent down to AAA. As expected his defense has been excellent, as Galvis has been without an error in his last 35 games after an error in his first game. Galvis’s splits deserve mention as he is hitting just .224 against RHP, while he is hitting lefties at a .375 clip.
Cameron Rupp has been hot as of late, having hit in his last 7 games (.385) and 12 of his last 14. (320, 16-50). Between AA and AAA, Rupp is hitting .271 over his last 50 games. Rupp continues to be very good defensively having thrown out 43% of would be base stealers.
Phillipe Aumont continues to be very inconsistent. On Monday, he struck out the side in his inning of work but in his previous three outings, he was 0-1 with a 10.81ERA(3.1IP 7H 4ER 2BB 4K. Prior to that, between June 14 and July 27, Aumont threw in 12 games and had a low ERA of 2.13 but walked 12 hitters in 12.2IP.
Next Week: Morgan, Hernandez, Gillies, Cloyd
Transactions: Last Wednesday, OF Steve Susdorf cleared waivers and was assigned to Lehigh Valley and INF Matt Tolbert was assigned to Reading from Lehigh Valley. On Friday, P Ethan Martin was promoted to Philadelphia, P Tom Cochran was promoted from CLearwater to Lehigh Valley and P Zach Miner was promoted to Philadelphia. On Sunday, P David Buchanan was called up to Lehigh Valley from Reading; On Monday, RP JC Ramirez cleared waivers and was assigned to Lehigh Valley; On Tuesday, RP Cesar Jiminez was called up to Philadelphia.
Probables: Wed: Cochran; Thur: Cloyd; Fri: Buchanan; Sat: Smith
Phuture Phillies 
Talking about splits, take a look at Rupp’s splits. .385 against lefties and .202 against righties. If the Phils want to use a platoon at catcher, Rupp’s your righty. I think he was in the .180s last week against righties so the last week has seen an improvement. Do teams in the Major’s use a catcher platoon? I know Russell and Daulton did it a long time ago. There are designated catchers for certain pitchers but a platoon?
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Bellman…the drawback to a platoon system.The notion of a platoon sounds great on paper, which is why managers are so often confronted with questions about them. And there’s a reason why the general reaction of said managers is to recoil in disgust, to deny the existence or contemplation of anything resembling the platoon in question. Because managers know that games aren’t played on paper, or in a vacuum, and when you start to consider the logistics of platoons in actual game situations, particularly National League game situations, you realize their drawbacks.
For starters, let’s be clear: regardless of what you want to call the staffing situation at a given position, the success or failure of said position is going to decided largely on the personnel’s ability to hit right-handed pitching. Last year, 2012, 70.2 percent of the Phillies’ 6,172 plate appearances came against right-handed pitching. Because, obviously, the vast majority of pitchers are right-handed. So when you talk about a platoon, you are really talking about a rotation where, in a vacuum, one player is expected to garner three-quarters of the playing time. And in a true platoon, that hitter is the left-handed hitter
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You can’t tell me Susdorf isnt a better bench bat than the scrubs the Phils send out there on a nightly basis
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Are you that guy that is constantly pumping Susdorf? Give it up man, dude’s a career minor league player at best.
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correct. I cant.
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Why not bring up Overbeck as a PH?
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