Maikel Franco, Cam Perkins and Sebastian Valle had two doubles a piece for Lehigh Valley, and Franco added a walk, (his first in a while). He’s had multi-hit games in six of his last seven, and his last ten games’ OPS is .992. Feel, feel, feel, feel, feeeeuhl. Feel the heat. And speaking of feeling the heat, Brian Pointer is OPSing 1.082 in the second half of the season so far (~65 PAs). He had a really strong June and is continuing to hit in July, though he has been striking out a lot – 33k in 113 PAs since June 1 – that’s over 29%. Cliff Lee have up 3R on 4H, 1BB, 4K and a wild pitch in 4IP. Sounds like somewhere in the fourth inning, where he allowed all those runs, someone lost a ball in the lights, which counts as a hit but is not necessarily Cliff’s fault.
Aaron Altherr was 2-4 with two doubles and a walk for Reading. Kelly Dugan was 1-3 with two walks, as his OPS climbs above .800 for the year – his walk rate is around 9.5% over a decent ~110PA sample. That’s good to see after his AA total last year was a startlingly low 2.2%. Zach Green and Dylan Cozens had three hits a piece for Lakewood. Cozens line included a double, Green’s included two, and Andrew Pullin hit his seventh home run of the year. Not sure what’s keeping Samuel Hiciano on the bench, but he hasn’t played for two days in a row now. Could just be time off to try to pull out of the wretched slump he’s been in – OPSing .515 in 14 games since he was a SAL all-star. David Whitehead wasn’t dominant in picking up the win over Vermont, allowing 4R 3ER on 5H 1HR 0BB and 3K in 5.1IP. Williamsport pounded out six extra-base hits off of Lake Monsters’ pitching. Lake Monsters is a pretty good name for a team. Per Wikipedia: “The name references Champ, the legendary Lake Champlain monster which had been the team’s mascot since 1994.” Good to know. Also their home stadium, Old Centennial Field is the oldest stadium in minor league baseball. I don’t know if you guys have ever read things on this “Wikipedia”, but it’s filled with information. I recommend it. And every once in a while there’s stuff that people just made up and put on the page. It’s like a guessing game. Fun times.
Clete Thomas and Freddy Galvis are rehabbing with the GCL club now. The Phils and Yankees1 played 11 innings before the game was halted by rain, with Yoel Mecias going 5.2 innings as he works his way back from Tommy John. And Jesus Alastre was kept off base in the VSL for what seems like maybe only the third or fourth time this year.
Phuture Phillies 