Box Score Recap – 4/17/2014

Box Score Recap

On a night where Lehigh Valley really could have used some innings from one of its starters, Greg Smith was equal to the task, throwing a seven inning CG shutout. The Pigs were shutout in the nightcap, managing just two hits. Cole Hamels threw a solid six innings in what looks to be his final rehab start. CLR couldn’t capitalize, as Lino Martinez walked four men in 1+ innings, one of whom Chris Burgess could not strand in the ninth, and the bats went (stayed?) cold.

Carlos Tocci put up three hits, two games after putting up four. All seven, and the one in the game in between, have been singles. Just sayin’. Dylan Cozens led the charge on defense, managing two fielding errors in right, thus encouraging four other Blueclaws to follow suit. You can’t teach that kind of leadership.

And finally, Willians Astudillo took three innings behind the plate after Gabriel Lino was pulled for unknown reasons after a Sac Fly RBI in the top of the sixth. I said yesterday in the comments that I’d take an empty average like Astudillo’s from a competent backstop. Seems like he’s got a chance to produce the former. We’ll see if he can deliver on the latter.

Here’s the affiliate Scoreboard from MiLB. http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?sid=milb&org=143&ymd=20140417

4-17-14 boxscores

26 thoughts on “Box Score Recap – 4/17/2014”

  1. What a terrible game for Lakewood. 6 errors and lose by 10. At least it’s only 1 game. It would be nice to see someone hitting above 260 besides Astudillo, too.

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    1. trust me if Lakewood is the Phillies hope going forward they are in big trouble. I am not saying that from afar. I am saying that from being at few of their games. They have very little athleticism. The visiting teams actually look like baseball players who run bases well, field well and are aggressive at plate. The lakewood team is just a freak show of physical oddities. If you combined a football team with winners of a eating contest you would get lakewood team.

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  2. Lakewood lineup has been very disappointing. Tocci slinging singles all over the place is a positive at least. Looks like he beefed up enough to get it over the infielder’s heads.

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  3. The system as a hole is devoid of offense. They played 5 games yesterday and in total scored just 9 runs.

    That’s crazy…

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  4. Brad, I’m glad you mentioned Astudillo or the site might have imploded. The Manager or a coach must have heard you mention that as a catcher Willians was interesting so he caught an inning or two. He’s been very flexible in his career. He’s played every position but CF and Pitcher. He’s played most of his games at 3B or C. Most of those were in the VSL, where on any given night you could be playing any position. He played mostly C in the GCL 2 years ago but he seems to have missed the entire 2013 season. Is that right? Please, nobody stick a pin in him, he could pop.

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      1. Why not? That’s exactly the image I had from the descriptions I’ve read.

        He’s a guy that would be very intriguing if he projected to play a decent catcher or even possibly third baseman. The profile – high average, not much else – would not play at any other positions that are reasonably possible (certainly no one is saying he could be a middle infielder or center fielder).

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        1. If he continues to hit like this, and ever gets to the majors….he could be talked about in the Joe Sewell category. Astudillo’s K rate is phenomenal..

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        1. Remember a Phils’ catcher that looked a lot like him. He could hit, too—Smokey Burgess. I’d take one like him.

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  5. I’m looking for the silver lining from the batter’s box. I’m looking… I’m looking… Wait one second… I’ve got it… No… I’m looking… okay… I’ve got one. Angelo Mora, the youngest guy on CLW — not named Grullon– is hitting .323/.364/.355. that’s pretty darn good for a 151 pound 2nd baseman. Looks like the 2nd coming of Cesar. He’s a switch hitter who hits equally well, although without pop, from both sides of the plate. His size reminds of Galvis but how do they pack another 20 pounds of muscle on him? Maybe he can bench press Lino Martinez for 8 reps every day.

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  6. Hiciano is one guy who’s doing alright at Lakewood so far. He hasn’t really shown any power yet, but supposedly it’s in there somewhere.

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    1. It’s a long season, but being two and a half weeks into the season means we are seeing a slice of reality, rather than viewing the organization with the dewy-eyed optimism of the off-season and the rose-colored glasses. The off-season was the time for optimists to post stuff like ‘how dare Baseball America (and others) say we’re only the 22nd best farm, we know our farm is a lot stronger than that and we have so many prospects, I can’t even limit my list to 40’. Now is the time when we start to recognize that most of the guys on our list of 40 were quite marginal prospects with an interesting tool, or merely guys who piqued our interest on draft day. We start to realize that our farm is indeed legitimately in the bottom third of organizations and that the Phillies are low odds for 2014 post-season. We are still in the SSS territory and some prospects stats will rise, while others fall as the sample size increases and the weather warms up, but that we do not have a juggernaut of a farm system. We are more familiar with the guys in our system, having read at least something positive or seen at least a week or two of great performance out of almost each and every one of them. It’s easy to remember that most of these guys won’t make it. To us, most of the guys in other systems, apart from the top prospects, are largely anonymous. Knowing our guys better makes them seem superior in comparison to anonymous names on other team’s rosters. Could they possibly have a guy with the stuff of an AUmont, who just needs to consistently pull his control together? Could they have a guy like Altherr who is just poised to break out in AA and display his innate power, or a guy with the power tool of a Larry Greene, or Zach Green, or Cozens, or Sandberg, or the high 90s FB of a Giles, or the mound presence of a Sev Gonzales or a Leiter? Yes, actually they could and they do. Lot’s of marginal prospects like that, even plenty of relief prospects in the minors as good as Giles.

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      1. All true. I don’t remember seeing too many people upset that we weren’t being ranked higher in those offseason lists though. Didn’t one list have us at 14 or something, and we mostly found it surprising? At least, I was surprised by it.

        It seems like almost every year we say that Lakewood is the team to watch. There’s probably a reason for that. Hope springs eternal when you’re talking about recent draftees playing short-season ball, but once they hit Lakewood, reality starts to set in for a lot of them.

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      2. I mostly agree.

        Setting aside the fact that 2 of our top 3 prospects (and arguably all three) haven’t had the most encouraging starts to the season, for me the three guys – all in Lakewood – with disappointing starts are Pulin, Green and Cozens. Pullin I saw as a possible breakout candidate. The other two were very good last season. Both were somewhat divisive prospects over the off season, for somewhat similar reasons. It’s beginning to look like the skeptics may have been correct in both cases.

        There was a sense – not just among Phillies’ fans – that, low ranking aside, the system had a good chance to move up the rankings because there were a lot of younger guys with real upside. That’s still possible, but looking less likely.

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      3. There actually aren’t a lot of guys like Giles, an 80 FB is an 80 FB for a reason, it isn’t common.

        It has not been a hot start to the year, but here are the guys in my personal Top 30 who haven’t played at their level (may still be rehabbing): Altherr, Quinn, Grullon, Martin, Sandberg, Mecias, Knapp, Encarnacion, Pujols, Morgan, Watson, J Hernandez, Anderson, and Canelo

        It is SSS but also you have 14 of 30 prospects who haven’t really played, and that isn’t counting Dugan and Rupp who have missed time. If your negative now then you didn’t have a realistic expectation to begin with. There is some level of familiarity with our guys that causes us to overrate some of them, and other times underate guys because we have prospect fatigue.

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        1. There aren’t a lot of guys with FB that grade out at 80, but there are a fair number of guys with an equivalent chance to be very successful major league relief pitchers. Giles certainly seems to have turned a corner with his control this season, so that does scoot him up a notch in the ratings, but there are closer prospects dotted around the minor league affiliates of many MLB organizations. Just as Quinn being an 80 for speed doesn’t make him the premiere SS prospect, even in the PHillies organization, it takes more than an 80 FB to be the top closer prospect. I do give a lot of weight to an 80 FB as a pitcher, it is a much more realized thing than Larry Greene’s close to 80 raw power.

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