Freddy Galvis went deep for Lehigh Valley. He’s stroking it right now, with three homers and five doubles and an OPS of 1.102 over the last ten days. Wish they had regular playing time for him in the bigs right now. Willians Astudillo played both games of Lakewood’s double header in left field, while Larry Greene didn’t see the field at all. He hasn’t played since Saturday. Haven’t heard about him nursing an injury, but perhaps he is.

Reading was rained out, which means Aaron Nola’s start was delayed until tonight, which means I’ll get a look at him next week in Bowie. Solid. Too bad it likely won’t be against anyone good, unless the O’s decide to jump Dylan Bundy up to AA for his next start and it happens to line up. That could happen. Bundy’s in line to start tonight for Frederick, (he was supposed to go last night but they also had rain), and he was good last time, so if they’re happy with his progress and want to see him at AA next, we may get a real interesting match-up in Bowie. I’ll cross my fingers.

On another note, MiLB player pages have been updated, and while they look great and modern, they have gotten rid of the unique to MiLB.com full “Last Ten” stat pack, truncating it to exclude doubles and triples, CS, OBP, SLG and OPS. Anyone who agrees with me that this is dumb should send an email to, I guess, webmaster@milb.com. I suggested they add Last Ten as a function of the Game Log menu and told them they’re going to lose traffic from people who can get the same statistical info and more at places like FanGraphs or MLBFarm.com (which FYI – does have a game log and a Last Ten Days (not games) subtotal, which includes BABIP and a couple other useful things, and spray charts and stuff, but the page is very plain looking and less user friendly).

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/12/2014 →

Jesse Biddle was back on the hill for CLR – he walked five in five innings, though he allowed just three hits and one run and struck out four. Not nearly as hopeful as last time with those five walks. We’ll see what they do with him now. REA has a DH Saturday, so if they wanted to, they could push him into that spot and hopefully save the bullpen some innings. Looks like a good chance of rain tonight in Harrisburg , so they very well might need the extra bullets Saturday. Whether they rush Biddle for that…doubt it. But if they like what they saw last night, then why not? We shall see. Also, if it rains out tonight in Harrisburg, I will be quite happy. Looks like my only chance to see Nola in DC next week. I know you’re all very concerned with my plight.

Nice job from the LV bullpen – Manship, Martin and Garcia threw a shutout, striking out nine. Wonder if they’re going to stretch out Manship. Kinda seems like a necessity, even with O’Sullivan coming back. Maybe they’ll rob AA of Adam Loewen instead. After a good outing turned bad in his last inning last time out, Brandon Leibrandt dominated Lowell on Monday night, striking out ten, allowing just two hits, one of them a home run, two walks and one earned run in seven innings. His second straight double-digit K performance. You’d have to think there’s a spot for him in CLR next spring if he earns it. Whether they’d move him up to LKW for a couple weeks right now remains to be seen. I kinda doubt it, but just kinda.

GCL has been on a tear lately, winning nine straight and now sitting a half game out of first place in the division behind Yankees1. Only the division winner makes the playoffs. Jose Pujols, Gus Martinez and Luis Encarnacion had three hits a piece from the bottom half of the lineup. And for those of you following him, Julsan Kamara hasn’t played in the last ten days in the DSL, but he is not currently on the DL. The rosters in DSL have a large limit of 35, so stashing someone who’s hurt up is not necessarily an issue if there’s no one worth putting in his spot. Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/11/2014 →

Aaron Altherr went deep (12), his third in four games. I hear he’s using a piano leg as a bat. Kyle Simon would like you to take Paul Anka’s advice and “Just Don’t Look” at his line.

Tyler Viza struck out seven en route to his fifteenth loss of the year. Seven is the important number, there. Nice. Andrew Pullin 3-3 with three doubles, and Dylan Cozens had two hits including a two-bagger. He’s got 42 XBH in around 480 PAs. Not bad.

Mitch Gueller has some seriously bad road splits, but he’s getting it done at home. Not sure the remedy for that. Cord Sandberg has hit in nine straight, (h/t Phillies Insider), Jia Tromp was 2-4 plus a walk, and Rhys Hoskins is really turning it on this month, OPSing 1.167 in nine August contests.

Lots of great info in Jay Floyd’s (@phoulballz) latest interview with Joe Jordan – click through to read it. Jordan talks Morgan/Watson, JP and Quinn, upper level outfielders, Viza and Rios, many more, plus Jay gets a couple Lakewood names confirmed for instructs from Greg Legg. And one more – BPro’s Ten Pack has scouting on Jan Hernandez, and at least his part of the article is not behind their paywall, so go check it out.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/10/2014 →

It’s pretty clear already that I’m not going to have time for this today – here’s the link. And no, Whach Ballier did not go deep, but he did have the walk-off hit.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/9/2014 →

Zach Collier hit two more home runs. He hit eight homers for Reading last year in about 500PAs. He has seven in his last 25PAs. At that pace, he would have hit 140 last year. I think that might have gotten him promoted. Can we start calling him “Whack Ballier”. Hmm…that sounds…not quite right.

Others going deep: J.P. Crawford (5,6 – wait, that’s TWO IN ONE GAME ALSO!!!); Aaron Altherr (11, second in two games); Angelo Mora (3); Brian Pointer (12); Mitch Walding (5, grand slam); Rhys Hoskins (6, he was 4-4).

Also, there were some nice pitching performances in there – my favorite, Ranfi Casimiro – 1R on 6H 1BB and 7K in 5 innings for Lakewood.

Enjoy your Saturday. Charlie Manuel’s Wall of Fame induction is tonight. If you’ve got nothing else going and are around town, it should be a beautiful night – 84 degrees with no noticeable humidity. Good night for a game. Those of us living out of town will be disgusted by you if you don’t go. Well, not disgusted, so much as…*sighs*…disappointed. *shakes head, sighs again, pauses, shakes head again, turns slowly, walks away with Wawa bag in one hand.*

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

Maikel Franco was 3-5 with a home run (10). His season OPS approaches .700, his wRC+ approaches 90, and I think we sometimes forget, he is still one of the youngest players in the league. Cubs prospect Javier Baez’ recent promotion makes him 2014’s youngest National Leaguer. Maikel Franco’s only about three months older than Baez. Just some perspective. And here’s a note for you – the last Phillie to be the youngest National Leaguer in a particular season was Larry Christensen in 1973. The Braves and Dodgers have had the youngest six times a piece since 1990.

Also for LV – Ethan Martin went three strong innings backing up Jo Jo Reyes, and Hector Neris ran his scoreless streak to 15 innings, (16 if you count that one in the bigs the other night). At AA, Chris Bootcheck, Kyle Simon and Colt Murray combined to throw a two-hit, two-walk, 14k shutout. Mercy. Kelly Dugan was 2-3 with a double and a walk, and Jake Fox (17) and Aaron Altherr (10) went deep. Dugan’s taking no prisoners right now – he’s OPSing .946 over his last ten games. He’s been on base in all but four games since July 1. And it was just one of those days for CLR – Mark Leiter got shelled, and the bullpen behind him did the same, allowing 18 Daytona runs. Art Charles hit his 14th home run and Herlis Rodriguez was 3-3. I imagine we’ll see Charles in Reading next year, and he may hit a ton of homers in that environment.

Andrew Pullin was 3-6 with his eighth home run of the year, and Zach Green was 2-4 with two walks as Lakewood lost in 12. Cord Sandberg went deep (4), his first in a while, and Jia Tromp was hit in the jaw with a pitch, but X-Rays were negative, per Ian Catherine (@IanCatherine27) on Twitter relaying from Jan Hernandez, who got a text from Tromp. Jose Pujols went deep for the second straight game (5) and catcher Jesus Posso hit his first – @statsking wrote up here last week (behind BPro’s paywall). Franklyn Kilome was strong over six innings, getting nine ground ball outs. And the VSL championship series finale was postponed by rain. We should get Ranger Suarez today on regular rest. We’ll see how it goes.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/7/2014 →

Aaron Nola and Jesse Biddle were on the hill for Reading and Clearwater, in the opposite order from where you’d have logically guessed that six weeks ago before Biddle was put on the inactive list. Nola pitched well, allowing one run on six hits, one walk and four Ks in five innings. He threw 65% of his 72 pitches for strikes, and was innings limited at five. Mitch Rupert was there on his day off and said on Twitter that Nola was sitting 92-93 on scouts guns, and though he touched 97 on the stadium gun, that seems far-fetched.  Mitch estimated that stadium gun was probably 2MPH hot. Still a fine outing from Nola.

As for Biddle, he was facing a Daytona team that has some pretty nice players right now, namely Kyle Schwarber, this year’s 4th overall pick, (who was generally ranked in the teens pre-draft but picked high and signed underslot), Dan Vogelbach, who’s OPSed near .800 on the year, and Billy McKinney, last year’s 24th overall pick who came to CHC in the Jeff Smajfgskuh trade and has been raking ever since. That’s some nice talent, and Biddle unequivocally shut them and the rest of their mates down. He threw five no-hit innings, allowing just one base runner on a walk, and striking out five. Rad. Here’s a nice write-up with comments from Biddle from MiLB.com’s Jake Seiner.

Elsewhere, Jia Tromp and Cord Sandberg both had two hits, and Tromp’s were both doubles for WIL. Tromp’s hot right now, with 5XBH in his last four games. Jose Pujols was 2-3 including his fourth homerun of the year and Denton Keys worked six fine innings for GCL – 1R 0ER 3H 1BB 5K. 2013 J2 guy Bryan Martelo was 2-4 with a double and a triple in the DSL.

And finally, VSL lost game two of their championship series on Wednesday. The last game is today, for all the marbles. Which for all I know is what these guys get for winning a championship. They probably get like a pizza party or the Venezuelan equivalent, and a neat plastic trophy. Or whats the drinking age in VZ? Maybe they all just go get blasted. Anyway, we likley won’t know until the box score starts up who will be starting for the VSL, but I would actually be a little surprised if it isn’t Ranger Suarez. I’ve wavered on that point for the last couple days. 11:30 EST, we’ll find out.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 8/6/2014 →