Yearly Archives: 2014

Box Score Recap – 8/21/2014

Box Score Recap

Cameron Rupp went 3-3 with a double, his second multi-hit game in the last three. I imagine a solid last ten days or so would be welcome for him at the end of this total bummer of a season. Brian Pointer was 2-4 with a double and Gabriel Lino was 2-4 with his fourth home run for CLR, (5th on the year across two levels). Edubray Ramos with a good outing – three Ks and one hit over two scoreless. He’s struck out 14 and walked just one in 14.2 IP for WIL.

Winding down here, folks. Not much left for these guys to do except stay healthy, and for the GCL squad, push for the playoffs. Many guys will be hitting instructs, and we could get some info on our 2014 July 2 international guys. Of course we’ll get a list of AFL players from the US born/Canadian ranks sometime shortly after the season, where hopefully we get a lot of scouting on the real prospects in that group, and a lot of the upper level foreign born players will play in their home countries’ pro leagues this winter, where we likely won’t get any scouting at all.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/21/2014 →

First Place Phillies Drop Game with Braves; August 20, 2014

Game Reports, , ,

The GCL Phillies entered their game with the GCL Braves tied with the Yankees for first place in the GCL Northwest Division.  They dropped a 4-0 decision to fall a game back with a 31-21 record and 7 games remaining in the season.

Denton Keys scattered 8 hits and a walk through 6 innings.  One of the two runs he allowed was unearned, set up by an errant pick off attempt in the third inning.  He allowed an earned run in the fourth on a bunt single, hit-and-run single, and a sacrifice fly.  Although he allowed 9 base runners, Keys benefited from double plays in the first and second innings, and a caught stealing in the fourth inning.  Continue reading First Place Phillies Drop Game with Braves; August 20, 2014 →

Box Score Recap – 8/20/2014

Box Score Recap

Lehigh Valley was stymied by Pawtucket pitching, managing just three hits and four walks. MAG threw two scoreless innings of relief, allowing a walk and striking out one. Kelly Dugan was 2-3 with two doubles plus two walks for Reading as Severino Gonzalez shutout Bowie for six innings and the bullpen completed the job. Gonzalez was throwing strikes, about 2/3 on the night, and he’s allowed 2R, 8H, 4BB and 13Ks in 13IP over two starts since being skipped at the beginning of the month to keep his innings down as he finishes out his first full season as a starter. Seems like the rest did him some good.

Roman Quinn was a triple short of the cycle, including his sixth home run of the year. Art Charles hit his second in as many nights (16), and Mark Leiter was strong over seven innings – he struck out seven after striking out 10 in 6.2 last time out. He’s walked just 35 men in 135 IP this year over two levels. I imagine he’ll start the spring fighting for a spot in Reading’s rotation. Jia Tromp hit his 13th home run, tying a Williamsport franchise record, shared by Zach Green from 2013. And I imagine the off-season can’t come soon enough for Chris Oliver. Another pretty good performance from Denton Keys – 2R 1ER 8H 1BB 6K in 6IP – he’s had four pretty good ones in a row. His offense did just about nothing to support him.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/20/2014 →

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.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/19/2014 →

Box Score Recap – 8/18/2014

Box Score Recap

Not much to talk about from the two games on the schedule. Jason Zgardowski, the new UDFA, got his first pro start for GCL. Venn Biter has five triples on the year. Tow DSL guys hit their first home runs of the season. Ran and off-days everywhere else.

Heading out to see Aaron Nola and the RPhils tonight at Bowie Baysox. Anyone who might be around, please give me a shout on Twitter or send me an email in advance (brad dot dc dot engler at gmail) and maybe we can say hello. I’m going to try to squat on some seats behind the scouts if I can and then go out to the bullpen and ask them who reads PhuturePhillies.com and offer them my autograph.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/18/2014 →

General Discussion – Week of 8-18-14 – Yo No Soy Marinero Edition

Weekly Discussion

A long homestand kicks off with the Mariners tonight, tomorrow night and Wednesday afternoon. Off day Thursday, then three with the Cardinals this weekend and Washington next week.

Yo no soy Cardenal o Nacional, either. For the record.

Discuss.

Box Score Recap – 8/17/2014

Box Score Recap

Maikel Franco hit a walk-off three run home run for Lehigh Valley (12). Phillippe Aumont with two clean innings, including 15/17 pitches for strikes and three Ks. Hoby Milner threw a three-hit shutout, striking out five Binghampton Mets. He’s been hot and cold his last five starts. Roman Quinn 1-4 with a BB and a steal, and he was caught stealing on a pickoff. JP Crawford was 3-5, Brian Pointer was 1-4 with a double and a walk, and Art Charles was 0-0 with five walks, (five!!!). Kevin Walter threw five shutout innings and struck out six. Good for him. Jim Peyton wrote up that game here.

Five guys had multi-hit games for Lakewood, lead by Carlos Tocci’s 3-4 plus a walk and Andrew Knapp’s 3-5 with a double. Aaron Brown has multiple hits in all four of his games with Lakewood. Brandon Leibrandt had another strong outing, striking out five and allowing 1R on 5H and 1BB.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/17/2014 →

Walter Completes Sweep of Lakeland; August 17, 2014

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

After 124 games and 37 series, the Clearwater Threshers finally swept a team in a three game series this weekend.  Thanks to some timely hitting and excellent starting pitching the Threshers have their fourth 3-game winning streak of the second half and the season.  Friday, Jordan Guth pitched 7 innings of 4-hit ball allowing 1 earned run.  Saturday, Colin Kleven pitched 6 innings of 5-hit ball allowing 2 earned runs.

Today, Kevin Walter made his second start and registered his first win of the season.  He pitched a strong game and was replaced after 5 innings.  His final line was – Continue reading Walter Completes Sweep of Lakeland; August 17, 2014 →