Lehigh Valley posted the affiliates’ only win last night in a combined two-hitter. Reading dropped their third straight game. Clearwater lost to Dunedin in their home opener. And, Lakewood was rained out.
Here is the box score recap. And, here’s the affiliate scoreboard from MiLB.
Lehigh Valley beat Pawtucket, 3-1, behind five one-hit innings by Zach Eflin. Tom Eshelman gets the Sunday start.
Zach Eflin allowed 5 base runners, all in the first 3 innings. One of the two walks he issued in the first was erased trying to steal second by Logan Moore. He retired the Sox in order in the second, but a nit batter, walk, and a single produced Pawtucket’s only run. Eflin retired the next seven batters. In addition to a hit and 3 walks, he struck out five.
Rafi Casimiro came in for the sixth, and allowed three base runners on a single (erased on a double play) and two walks.
Austin Davis retired the Sox in order in the seventh.
Zac Curtis walked one and struck out two in a scoreless eighth.
Pedro Beato struck out the side in a 1-2-3 ninth, and earned his first save.
The IronPigs scored first. Logan Moore led off the third inning with a walk. He moved to second on a soft come backer to the pitcher. He took third on an infield single by Roman Quinn that was deflected by the pitcher. Quinn stole second. Moore scored on Danny Ortiz’ sac fly. The inning ended after a Dylan Cozens’ walk and a pitching change.
Lehigh Valley added two runs in the fourth inning. Jesse Valentin was hit by a pitch to start the inning. He moved to third on a throwing error on an Andrew Pullin fielder’s choice. Matt McBride walked to load the bases. Alexi Amarista drove in two runs with a one out single.
Pullin had the IronPigs only other hit.
Three IronPigs’ batters were hit by a pitch ball. Four received walks.
Quinn was ejected in the seventh inning after his second strike out looking.
- #9 Enyel De Los Santos:
- #10 Dylan Cozens: went 0-3 with a walk and 2 K
- #11 Roman Quinn: went 1-4 with a SB and 2 K
- #22 Tom Eshelman:
- #24 Drew Anderson:
- Zach Eflin: (1-0, 1.80) – 5.0 IP,1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, HBP
- Andrew Pullin: went 1-4 with a run scored
Reading lost to Erie, 7-4. Jake Waguespack pitches Sunday to avoid the 4-game sweep.
Jojo Romero went four innings and gave up 6 runs on 7 hits. Tyler Gilbert pitched three innings in relief allowing one run on four hits. He struck out three. Seth McGarry gave up one hit and struck out three in two innings.
Reading scored a single run in the first on Jiandido Tromp’s ground out. They scored two in the sixth on Zach Green’s single. And a run in the eighth on Jan Hernandez’ rally killing double play with the bases loaded and nobody out.
Green, Hernandez, and Sandberg had two hits each.
Ten Phils were retired on strike outs.
- #7 Franklyn Kilome:
- #13 Cornelius Randolph: went 1-4 with 2 K
- #15 Ranger Suarez:
- #16 Jojo Romero: (0-1) – 4.0 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, HBP
- #29 Edgar Garcia:
- #30 Seranthony Dominguez:
- Damek Tomscha: went 0-3, 1 R, BB
- Cord Sandberg: went 2-4 with a double
- Jiandido Tromp: went 0-2 with 2 runs scored, an RBI and 2 BB
Clearwater lost to Dunedin, 6-1. Alejandro Requena pitches tomorrow in Dunedin.
McKenzie Mills retired the Jays in order in the first, and pitched his way out of a bases loaded, nobody out jam in the second. The Jays finally got to him with a coule HRs in the third. Jake Hernandez gave up two runs in two innings pitched. Ismael Cabrera pitched a clean inning. And, Jeff Singer pitched into and out of a bases loaded situation in the ninth.
The Threshers scored in the first on an Arquimedes Gamboa double and a Darick Hall RBI single.
Gamboa and Henri Lartigue had 2-hit games.
The Threshers committed their first error of the season.
- #1 Mickey Moniak: went 0-5
- #6 Adam Haseley: went 0-4
- #8 Adonis Medina:
- #17 Jose Gomez:
- #23 McKenzie Mills: (0-1, 9.00) – 4.0 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 2 HR
- Arquimedes Gamboa: went 2-4 with a run scored, double, BB
- Darick Hall: went 1-4 with an RBI, BB
- Conner Seabold:
- Edgar Cabral:
- Austin Listi: went 1-3 with a BB
- Luke Williams: went 0-4
- Henri Lartigue: went 2-3 with a BB
Lakewood was rained out, to be made up Sunday. Spencer Howard and Damon Jones get the starts.
- #14 Cole Stobbe:
- #18 Daniel Brito:
- #20 Jhailyn Ortiz:
- #21 Spencer Howard:
- Simon Muzziotti:
- Quincy Nieporte:
- Malvin Matos:
- Jake Scheiner:
- Nick Maton:
- Josh Stephen:
- Will Stewart:
- Kyle Dohy:
These prospects aren’t on any official rosters, yet. Or they are with the big club. Prospect rankings are from MLB.
- #2 Sixto Sanchez: expected to debut for Clearwater when healthy
- #3 Scott Kingery: with Phillies
- #4 J.P. Crawford: with Phillies (89 career AB)
- #5 Jorge Alfaro: exceeded 130 AB, no longer has prospect status
- #28 Victor Arano: with Phillies
- #12 Kevin Gowdy: not expected to pitch this season
- #19 Elniery Garcia: not on a roster
- #25 Luis Garcia: not on a roster
- #26 Abrahan Gutierrez: not on a roster
- #27 Eliezer Alvarez: traded to Texas
Phuture Phillies 
Good the see Eflin pitch so well but I was very disappointed by Jo Jo’s night. So little hitting throughout the system…
Moniak and Haseley 0-9. That’s actually hard to do. Agree with the comment about lack of pitching. Keep up the good work Jim. Great recaps.
The concern with Moniak isn’t 0-5. It is that he had 3 strikeouts. He already has 5 strikeouts in 13 PAs. His inability to hit breaking pitches is a major, major concern. Everyone focused on his weight gain in the offseason, and that is nice. But if he can’t hit LHP or breaking balls, then he is a non-prospect. Hopefully his early season struggles are just due to adjusting to a new level. But he had same issues last year.
I agree with you. Nobody wants to say anything but his struggles with his hit tool and the apparent inability to hit breaking pitches is a massive source of concern and, for me, it’s the type of issue that often makes HS hitters as big of risk, perhaps even a bigger risk, than the pitchers.
AS for Quinn being better than Williams I tend to agree and apparently, so does Kapler, who has properly allocated most of the RF ABs to Altherr – a much better player and that one probably isn’t close either.
yeah, i actually believe that the Phillies agree that Quinn > Williams, but not better than Altherr, which I think is close but could be argued either way. So it makes sense to get Quinn every day ABs and keep Nick on bench Especially since Kingery will get OF playing time too.
You know that his strike outs are on breaking pitches? Or just an assumption? Do NOT start the witch hunt on “no-prospect” talk without evidence. And certainly not after four games. Sheesh!
Slow star across the board
Elfin looked determined to make it happen.
Reading bats starting to wake up
I’m starting to like Canelo’s defense. Let’s see if he can hit.
Wondering what’s wrong with Sixto Sanchez.
If Medina continues to do fine he should be promote to Reading
It has been reported by Jim (repeatedly) that Sixto is recovering from the flu. They want him at 100% before they send him out. So it’s not an arm or a knee or a shoulder. It’s the flu. My brother had the flu this year and it knocked him down for 2 weeks and he still isn’t 75% 3 weeks later. He wouldn’t be pitching either except he’ll be 60 this year so he probably wouldn’t be pitching anyway… unless, of course, he was Bartolo Colon.
This isn’t intended to be snippy but after I read it twice, it sounds like it is. I tried to rewrite it so it was less snippy but it’s not much better.
Which raises an issue that seems to come up every few years – lots of players getting the flu. WHY THE HELL DON’T THE PHILLIES GIVE THEIR PLAYERS FLU SHOTS EN MASSE BEFORE THEY HEAD HOME FOR THE WINTER?
Every season some unheralded prospect seems to break out with a relatively above average season, beyond most people’s expectations.
Perhaps Cord Sandberg will be the guy this year.
Romus, I say something like this every year about Cord. He looks like a ballplayer. He has good size. He’s pretty strong defensively even though he’s playing LF most of the time. He’s still only 23 yo and he was a 3rd round pick. It always seems that success is just around the corner. He needs to hit better. Get on base more and smack a few more HRs and XBHs (like this is no small thing). That’s all he has to do but each year is about the same as the previous year. He hasn’t earned an outright release but he does need to kick into a higher gear pretty soon.
bellman….agree.
He fills on the five-tool squares for a decent prospect….except the most important, the hit tool.
I hope Reading at least is good to him and he can at least open some eyes.
I noticed that Sandberg was in center field yesterday. I thought he was a corner outfielder? If he can play center that raises the ceiling for him.
According to his career fielding charts he as some experience there:
CF-38 games…..278 innings
LF-248 games…2068 innings
RF-177 games…1449 innings
Damek Tomscha has been having some really really good at-bats, and 5 walks in three games so far. He’s looked decent at 3B. There have been some long, cold innings in Reading so far, he and C are the ones I’ll sit and watch.
Romus, Sandberg had a great spring. He finished strong with 3 long balls in his last two starts. We were surprised when he didn’t make a roster.
Hot take: Quinn is dramatically better than Nick Williams and it isn’t even close.
So far so good for the mighty Quinn…he has not pulled, strained, or broken any body parts.
Romus – He got thrown out of the game yesterday.
Wawa Mike….as long as he was not carried out of the game, then all is fine with me.
v1again – I absolutely agree. Quinn does so many things that can energize a team. I’m willing to allow PHIL to decide which of Herrera, Altherr, or Williams gets traded, but four starting outfielders is unacceptable.
Agree with v1. Quinn >>>Williams
Also, looking forward to Spencer Howard’s first start today. He’s my breakout star this season.
We are both in on this guy. I think you’re looking at a guy who might have a #2 ceiling – I like him a lot.
One other thing and, yeah, it belongs in the general comments, but whatever – how good is Rhys Hoskins? He’s not even hot and his plate discipline is so outstanding that he’s still a huge plus at the plate. He’s an example of a guy who has outplayed his ceiling or, stated differently, he’s raised the roof.
Hinkie….Howard piling up the strike outs this afternoon.
Howard also piled up the pitch count (73 pitches in just three innings). He went to full counts on the first three batters of the game, and the fourth batter must have fouled off three or four balls with two strikes on him before finally striking out. All in all, a pretty impressive stat line … 3 IP, 7 K, 1 BB.
That would be a fairly hot take without “dramatically” and the “not close” part being thrown in there. Williams hit better in the majors last year than Quinn did in AAA, though Roman didn’t quite make it to 200 PAs. How much of your sentiment is because of Williams’ comments to the media the other day?
zero. i couldn’t care less about his comments on his lack of playing time. i care about his horrible approach, high k rates, low walk rates and no other great skill to make up for it.
As for JoJo, I’m not even sure what to say. I made excuses for Ranger and Seranthony—but it just didn’t look like JoJo was very good. FB 90 mostly; a couple inconsistent offspeed offerings—just nothing special.
The thing is, I’ve said almost the exact same thing about Ben Lively and Tom Eshelman in their early starts at Reading, so it’s a matter of those guys taking the ball every 5 days (or when called upon for SD) and getting better. Looking forward to seeing what Waguespack looks like today—again in the cold.
@kram207
Apparently weather plays a factor on gripping the ball/seams…especially with young pitchers who grew up pitching in warm climates.
Remember Kilome’s April from two season ago in Lakewood?
The Erie starting pitchers are outperforming ours in Reading, except for the doubtfull Arauz and the relievers.
I woudn’t bame it on the cold weather. They all are playing beneath the same sky.
Rough start for Jo Jo Romero. But I am not worried. If I remember correctly, last year his first start for Lakewood went the same way, and he found his comfort zone and had a great year. As for Mickey Moniak, I will give him a month before I say anything, so as to have a larger sample size to comment on. But I will say this. His hit tool was a major selling point when drafted, along with his willingness to sign for under slot, so all I am looking for is tangible progress.
I Don’t know if Moniak will be anything, never saw him play. but if he is a bust, I hope middleton has the balls to fire johnny for making a bad pick on the first player in the draft. You just cant miss on those types of picks.
It’s not a fireable offense – especially since it was clearly a group decision – but it sure as heck was not good. It’s not full blown disaster yet – but this is heading in a very bad direction.
Anyway, given his struggles, I wonder why they promoted Moniak to Clearwater. I mean, I’m not there every day watching his progress like they are, so I know very little, but he’s still just 19 years old and, given what he had to deal with last year, I would think they would want to see him dominate at a level so his confidence could grow. Well, it’s still early – let’s see how he’s doing come mid-May.
Is no one mentioning that Ortiz is still 0 for???