Two straight late inning, come from behind wins for Lehigh Valley, who have now won three straight games to start their seven game road trip through the South. The ‘Pigs conclude their series with Gwinnett tonight, before heading to Durham for a four game series against the Bulls over the weekend. Currently sitting at 59-37, the ‘Pigs are 1.5 games behind division leading Scranton and hold a 4.5 game lead over Rochester in the wildcard standings.
News and Notes: Tom Eshelman has made 12 AAA starts and 10 of them have been “quality starts”. Since April 18th, Eshelman is a combined 10-2 with a 2.27ERA in 15 starts between Reading and Lehigh Valley with a walk rate of just 1.1 per 9 IP.
—JP Crawford has now homered in 6 of his last 14 games (48AB) and has more homers than he did in all of 2016. Crawford has reached base on 15 of his 16 games in July, hitting .286 over that time period.
–After walking just 4 times in his first 50 games, C Jorge Alfaro has walked 12 times in the last 25 games. That said, his average is down under .250. Over the last 18 games, Alfaro is hitting just .165.
—Dylan Cozens is hitting .295 at Coca Cola Park and .180 on the road.
—Rhys Hoskins has hit his first extended rough patch of the season, hitting just .160 (8-50) thus far in July.
—2B Scott Kingery is hitting a combined .320 in his last 30 games (AA/AAA). Kingery is the only player in all of baseball with 20HR and 20SB already this season.
–Over his last 10 starts (AA/AAA), P Brandon Leibrandt is a combined 6-1 with a 1.82ERA. He has won all of his AAA starts and 6 striaght starts combining AA and AAA.
–With his save on Tuesday night, Pedro Beato has taken over the record for saves in a single season for LV, with his 27th, passing Scott Mathieson. Beato is unscored upon in his last 9 games, which have included 5SV.
–RP Colton Murray is really struggling having been scored upon in 4 of his last 5 outings (12.70ERA) without recording a strikeout.
–Since May 25th, RP Yacksel Rios is a combined 0-0 with a 1.17ERA and a SV in 9G between Reading and Lehigh Valley
–After an outstanding start to the season, RP Pat Venditte has an ERA over 6 in his last 21 appearances.
Probables: Wed: Eflin, Thur: Thompson, Fri: Leibrandt; Sat: Eshelman
‘Pigs leaders: Hitting, Dylan Cozens is 5th in AB(340),10th in SLG(.479), is 4th in RBI(59), leads the league homers (22), strikeouts (125) and is 7th in runs(55)Rhys Hoskins leads the league in runs (63),RBI(68), SLG(.550), is 5th in BB(48), 7th in OBP(.376)is 3rd in HR(20), 7th in hits (92); JP Crawford is 7th in triples (4) and is 2nd in BB(52); Nick Williams is 7th in HR (15) and 5th in SLG (.511); ; Jorge Alfaro is 9th in strikeouts(96); Pitching: Pat Venditte is 7th in wins(8), 7th in games (35); Jake Thompson leads the league in losses (11); Tom Eshelman is 3rd in ERA (2.14) and leads the league in WHIP (0.95); Pedro Beato leads the league in games(41), saves(27); Mark Appel is 2nd in walks (53)
Transactions: Comings: Harold Martinez (from Reading); P Mark Leiter (from Philadelphia), OF Herlis Rodriguez (from Reading), P Zach Eflin (activated from the DL), P Ben Lively (from Philadelphia), P Yacksel Rios (from Reading); Goings: P Mark Peterson (Released), P Mark Appel (Placed on DL), INF Jorge Flores (to Reading), OF Nick Williams (promoted to Philadelphia)
Phuture Phillies 
JPC…2nd in IL in BBs, with 20 less ABs than 1st place player and Hoskins 5th.
That is a real plus going forward.
100% agree. On base guys almost always find their way as it’s a very valuable skill. Come to think of it, it should probably be considered a ‘tool’, just like power, throw, glove, speed and hit.
Aaron Altherr out 3-6 weeks , hmmmmm that goes past the trade deadline, interested to see what happens if Nava and HK are gone…
not really a rough patch for Hoskins if you watch his games, a ton of lines drives right at people. just some hard luck going on
I saw them at Gwinnett. Alfaro had two injuries on Monday but I don’t know severity of problem(s). He did something to his leg or foot as he tried to beat out a ground ball to 3B in first inning. He ran hard down the line and stretched to hit the bag before the throw got there. He went back to dugout limping. However, he stayed in game but limped throughout. In the ninth inning, he got hit in the hand while batting. He was clearly in pain and trainer came out. Logan Moore has caught the last two games.