Maikel Franco with his eighth home run and second in three days. He was 4-4 and has been absolutely crushing it in July, with an OPS of .972 for the month, which includes 14 XBH in ~90PAs. Solid. Reading managed just two hits, and Severino Gonzalez lasted just three innings against Portland. Seve only threw 52 pitches, but he did allow two more homers. Not solid. Roman Quinn’s streak of walks and steals comes to an end, but he has hit in six straight. For LKW, Andy Knapp had three hits and Dylan Cozens and Mitch Walding had two a piece – Walding’s OPSing a Maikel Franco-esque .975 in July. His Ks remain a little high, though he’s been better this month at around 23%, but his walks are near double digits for the year. A month in A+ might be a good idea for his progress, as he appears to be over SAL pitching, finally.

And hopefully Tyler Viza’s getting something out of his time in Lakewood, because you know he’s not getting much confidence from his game day results. He’s 3-14, which has to kind of suck. It’s meaningless in judging his performance, and there’s plenty not to like in his stats, but it was a really aggressive placement for a HS draftee who didn’t even see WIL last summer. He’s at least kept his control, as evidenced by a really strong 1.88 BB/9 for a 4.6% BB Rate. Seems he’s been a little bit unlucky as well, as FIP has him at 4.10 for the year, which is not bad at all for one of the ten or so youngest regular starters in the league, and nearly a run better than his ERA. His placement in 2015 will be interesting.

I’ve spent too much time on this already, so I’ll leave the short season leagues to you all to discuss, but I will say this much: ¡Viva Encarnación!

Is it “vivo”, “viva”, “vive”, or one of those with an accent, maybe? Anyone? Viva seems to flow off the tongue, but I don’t think it’s right.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/28/2014 →

Roman Quinn with a single, a walk and his 17th steal. I’m very excited to see his name in the boxes every night right now. He’s hit in five straight, stole a base in six straight, walked in seven straight, and been on base in nine straight. He’s got a home run and a double during his on-base streak, yet somehow, all of that combined, gives him a .639 OPS over his last ten games. JP Crawford had two hits and a steal, and Brian Pointer was 2-4 with a double, a homer and his eighth steal of the year. Pointer, notoriously streaky, had 13ks last week. Hopefully Sunday sets him off on another run of solid results.

Kelly Dugan went deep for Reading (4) while Larry Greene hit his first of the year for Lakewood. Matt Imhof pitched well, there, while Greene and Dylan Cozens both had two hits in the Lakewood nightcap, and Mitch Walding was a triple short of the cycle. Tocci and Zach Green had triples in that one – one of them should have lent Walding one. That would have been super leadershipy of them. FYI – Tocci is fourth in the SAL league in triples with eight.

Finally, for WIL, Rhys Hoskins hit his fifth home run, while Drew Stankiewicz had two hits, and Jan Hernandez had three. Hernandez has five hits in the last two games since they gave him four days off to work on some things in the cage, (per Mitch Rupert’s reporting). He managed to not strike out Sunday, for the first time in a full game since July 4, (he took just 2 PAs  with zero Ks July 13, but that doesn’t count when I’m trying to prove a point).

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/27/2014 →

Maikel Franco hit his seventh home run of the year. What a dismal phrase that is to type the last weekend of July. Colt Murray with his first AA save – he’s put up some nice numbers there – 37K, 15BB and just 3HR  while pitching over half of his 40.2 innings in the Baseballtown launching pad. Roman Quinn walked again and stole another base – six games in a row with a walk and five with a steal. Dylan Cozens stole his 18th base of the year. Nice start from Ranfi Casimiro – 1R 6H 1B 6K in 6IP.

Williamsport pitchers Ricardo Pinto, Edubray Ramos and Calvin Rayburn held Mahoning Valley hitless for nine innings, but the Scrappers got to Brian Sova in the tenth. Jesse Biddle and Drew Anderson started rehab assignments for GCL. Biddle allowed a solo home run, a walk, struck out three and made a pickoff error in two innings. Anderson allowed a hit, a walk and struck out three in two scoreless innings.

And in the Dom Rep, Ranger Suarez struck out six in seven innings without allowing a walk, bringing his season ratio to 74:1. Severino Gonzalez was a year older in 2012 when he walked six and struck out 86, and we all thought that was absurd. What the heck do we call this? Extrabsurd.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/26/2014 →

Lehigh Valley lost a slugfest, with Cesar Hernandez a homer short of the cycle. Maikel Franco and Leandro Castro had two hit a piece. Hector Neris has put up five straight scoreless appearances. He’s had a handful of absolute trainwrecks at AAA, so a nice long stretch of scoreless would be nice. Reading managed just three hits and a walk off of Akron pitching. If it seems like Roman Quinn’s been walking a lot lately, it’s because he’s been walking a lot lately. Five straight games. His BB rate is spiking near 9% now. Notched his 15th steal as well, and four games in a row with one steal, and six steals in his last eight games. Nice to see. JP Crawford OPSing .875 in his last ten games. Also nice. Aaron Nola gave up one run on five hits, a walk and four strikeouts – the walk was his first free pass since his debut, 32 days earlier.

Tocci, Green, Astudillo and Greene with two hits a piece for Lakewood. Back-to-back days of two hits for Tocci and Green. In his eight starts, Yacksel Rios has struck out just 26 and walked 20 in 40.2 IP. That’s not great. It was 32:12 in 38 relief innings to start the year. You’d have to think he’ll eventually wind up back in the pen if he can’t improve on those K numbers when he’s stretched out.

Williamsport managed just two hits, though they had four walks, so not as bad as it sounds at first glance.  Still bad though. Mahoning Valley starter Kieran Lovegrove pitched and whatever , but dang, that’s a pretty fine name. I called it an 80 on Twitter, but that was probably generous by a grade.

And a couple DSL notes – Bryan Martelo was 2-3 plus a walk. He’s having a rough go of it in his pro debut. And 17 year-old RHP Adonis Medina has been carving up DSL hitters in his couple of outings – he’s allowed eight hits, struck out 12 and walked just one in 10 innings. Call that a name to watch.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/25/2014 →

Busiest day I can remember this year. All eight affiliates plus two rain-completion double headers. The headline for me is four Lakewood Blueclaws with two hits a piece – Tocci, Pullin, Cozens and Green. Green had two doubles and added a walk. Other standouts on the day included Kelly Dugan and Jake Fox for Reading, Jiandido Tromp for WIL, Jesus Posso, Jose Pujols, Joel Fisher, Jake Sweaney, Tim Zier and Franklyn Kilome for GCL.

In the interest of getting this up so the discussion can commence, I’ll spare you any further musings. Have at it.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/24/2014 →