Daily Archives: August 20, 2014

Threshers Split in Daytona; August 19, 2014

Game Reports, , , , , , , , , ,

Jesmuel Valentin made his debut with the Threshers last night. He singled in his first at bat, stole second, and scored on a Brian Pointer single.  That was his last impact on scoring in the game until the bottom of the eighth inning.

Due to a rain out on Monday, two 7-inning games were scheduled Tuesday.  The start time was pushed back by afternoon rains again.  The Threshers took a quick 1-0 lead on Pointer’s single mentioned above.  They re-took the lead on Pointer’s opposite field, 2-run home run in the third inning.  Pointer leads the team with 14 home runs and 49 RBIs.

Meanwhile, Miguel Nunez battled and was finally lifted with 2 outs in the fourth inning and the bases loaded.  Cody Forsythe recorded the final out of the inning on a pop up to shallow center.  Nelson Prada left Forsythe in to close out the game.  Looked good until with 2 out and 2 strikes, Kyle Schwarber clubbed a game-tying home run to right in the botttom of the seventh inning.

Lee Ridenhour took the loss in the eighth innng on a routine ground ball to second.  Ridenhour walked Bill McKinney with one out.  The next batter hit a slow ground ball to Valentin at second.  He flipped the ball to Crawford to start the inning-ending double play.  Then all hell broke loose.  Valentin’s flip pulled Crawford off the bag, runner safe on the Valentin throwing error.  Chris Serritella could not handle Crawford’s throw at first, batter safe on Crawford’s throwing error.  Serritella retrieved the ball and chased down the batter to tag him out for the second out.  Meanwhile, Gabriel drifts up the line toward first base, allowing McKinney to continue home to score the game-winning run without a throw.

In another oddity, the Threshers’ line up included 7 left-handed hitters/switch hitters against the Cubs right-handed starter.  The Cubs line up featured 9 left-handed batters against the right-handed Nunez.  This in part probably explains Prada’s trying to get 7 outs out of Forsythe.

Prada’s other two bullpen lefties pitched in the night cap, Lino Martinez started and Ethan Martin relieved and got the win.  Ulises Joaquin picked up the save.  Roman Quinn went 2-2 with 2 walks, 2 runs scored, and his 29th stolen base.  Art Charles took the team lead in home runs with his 15th of the season.  Valentin and Pointer went 0-3 in the second game.  Crawford got the game off.

 

Nola’s Numbers Against Bowie; August 19, 2014

Game Reports

I listened to Aaron Nola’s outing on Baysox radio.  Brad was actually there, and posted his observations in the Box Score Recap.  Here’s what I charted during the game.

  • 5 IP, 5 H,  2 R,  2 ER,  2 BB,  2 K
  • 21 batters, 14 first pitch strikes
  • 79 pitches, 50 strikes
  • 5 swinging strikes, 13 called strikes, 15 fouls, 17 balls in play
  • both strike outs were of the swing-and-miss variety
  • 6 ground ball outs, 4 fly ball outs, 2 pop ups, 5 singles
  • 2 line drive singles, 1 ground ball single, 2 bunt singles
  •  2 of the fly ball outs were line drives
  • the radio announcers only mentioned his velo once at 91 mph
  • I saw Twitter reports of 92-93 with spikes to 95 and one at 96
  • he got no decision and left with the score tied 2-2

I would categorize this as another good outing.  These are still uncharted waters for his arm.  Even with inning’s limits and pitch counts, he is continuing a starting pitcher’s workout regimen much further into the summer than he ever has.

Box Score Recap – 8/19/2014

Box Score Recap

Here’s a quick write-up of what I saw in Bowie last night. Aaron Nola pitched pretty well for Reading. His FB was sitting 89-93, per @stoltz_baseball, though the stadium gun had him touching 96 on one pitch. Not so much. Worked around the edges of the zone fairly well, and got some called strikes with his off-speed pitches. He got BABIPed pretty badly in the fifth, with a single, followed by two consecutive line-hugging bunts that laid waste to Carlos Alonso’s defensive positioning/mobility, a spectacularly-turned double-play grounder from Serna and Cartwright that pushed across a run, and a flyball out. Not sure what more he could have done except try to hex those two bunters.

Jake Fox’s homerun hit the LF fair-pole about 35-40 feet up, not far from the top. Were I to guess in a distance, it would be 700 feet. That’s probably an over-estimate. Kelly Dugan made a nice sliding grab early on, and Albert Cartwright stopped a grounder in shallow right with a fine diving grab and got up quickly to throw out the runner. Cartwright also bunted home Peter Lavin on a perfectly executed squeeze play. No chance to get Lavin at home. Colt Murray was solid in relief, sitting in the low-mid 90s, with a couple nasty breaking balls mixed in with some just-decent-looking offerings. That’s my untrained eye, so who knows. I had to leave after Top 8, so I missed the badness. Good move on my part. I did not need to see Nefi Ogando give up a grand slam.

Elsewhere, Maikel Franco went 3-4 with a double, as he looks to salvage a decent August. OPSing .721 now on the month, .685 on the year. Jessie Valentin picked up his first hit and first steal in A+, JPC stole two on Kyle Schwarber, Quinn stole one and was caught once as he went 2-2 with two walks in the night cap, while Brian Pointer (14) and Art Charles (15) went deep.

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