Add the name Angelo Leclerc to the list of ancillary characters in the history of the Phillies. He gave up what’s sure to be one of several, maybe even one of dozens of, Carlos Tocci professional home runs. Yes, it cleared the fence. By how much, I don’t know. In the DSL, Julsan Kamara was 2-3 to pull his average above the Mendoza line. Good to see.

For WIL, Jan Hernandez was 0-4 with 3Ks. He’s really struggling, with just four hits in his last ten games. He’s struck out 13 times in that span. Mitch Gueller did not have his best stuff, the way it sounds:

He wound up allowing 4R, 7H, 3BB and 4K in 4IP. Another report from Brett Hershey, this one on Manny (nee Manaure) Martinez:

Also, my latest Crashburn Alley piece just went up. It’s on the scorching hot Brian Pointer.   Give it a whirl, if you like.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/16/2014 →

A light night on the schedule, as GCL was rained out and all the other stateside leagues were on scheduled off-days or All-Star Breaks. What a comeback to the SAL for Yoel Mecias – three walks, two hits and seven strikeouts in five scoreless innings, plus he got five outs on the ground. Dylan Cozens hit two home runs, (12, 13) to make a pretty good night of it himself – he was 4-5. And I guess I’ll recognize that Mitch Walding had three doubles, giving him 10 in this last 10 games. The man’s got it going on right now. Maybe time to push him to CLR and let Zach green get back to playing third every day.

And speaking of Green – this one falls in the “hmm…really” category – Zach Green stole his seventh base, and so did Carlos Tocci. Tocci’s played in almost twice as many games, and been caught nine times. Green’s been caught once.

Hmm…really? Hmm…

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/15/2014 →

Can you all confirm for me that you don’t really care about Adam Loewen? Nothing against him, I just can’t get excited about a 30-year-old guy who, yesterday aside, doesn’t strike many guys out. It’s a nice story, going from big league pitcher to cup-of-coffee big league hitter, and back to minor league pitcher and winning some games. But really, I’m not feeling it.

How long can Brian Pointer stay this hot? Mercy. He was 2-4 with his ninth home run of the year. JPC was 3-3 plus a walk the day after he played in the Futures Game. Cliff Lee got hit around a bit in his last rehab start before a scheduled return to the bigs this Saturday. Jim wrote that up here. Check it out.

WIL managed just four hits, two from Deivi Grullon, and David Whitehead pitched pretty well again, though he’s still not ringing guys up – just 3k in 6IP. The three rehabbers, Galvis, Thomas and Joseph each had a hit for the GCL. Jesus Alastre stole his tenth base, and he’s finally at 50% on the year. Not bad after he started 2-9 or something like that. And Ranger Suarez continues to dominate opposing VSL lineups – 4H, 0BB, 5K in 7 scoreless. His K:BB ratio sits at 61:1 for the year. Silly.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/14/2014 →

The Futures Game was today. J.P. Crawford was 1-2 with a stolen base and Maikel Franco was 0-2. Franco didn’t take any chances in the field, and Crawford handled a routine grounder and also made a strong throw to finish off a ground ball double play.

Back in the real world, Aaron Altherr was 2-4 with his seventh home run of the year. Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez with his second save in as many tries for Reading. He’s given up four hits and three walks in seven innings, and struck out 12. Not bad. Aaron Nola allowed three runs and seven hits, two of them home runs, and struck out just two. Reports on Twitter have him throwing around 2/3 of his pitches for strikes. Good to see Sam Hiciano with a hit in three straight after a couple days off. He could use a hot streak right about now.

A five inning affair in WIL, as Matt Imhof shut out Tri-City – 3H 1BB 3K in those 5IP before the rain had its way. Aaron Brown hit his second home run in as many days, and Drew Stankiewicz hit his first as a pro.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/13/2014 →

Aaron Altherr and Kelly Dugan with two hits a piece for Reading. Severino Gonzalez put up a decent line – 6IP, 3R, 6H, 1HR, 1BB, 3K, 64% strikes. MAG worked a scoreless ninth for the save. JPC hit his fourth HR since joining CLR. OMG. Carlos Tocci with four hits, Andrew Pullin with three, and Zach Green and Mitch Walding both with two for extra bases for Lakewood as they put up eight runs in a loss. Yacksel Rios pitched fairly well, but Will Morris, well, he kind of didn’t pitch ok, I guess. You’ll see what I mean.

Speaking of kind of not pitching ok, I guess, Chris Oliver got shelled for WIL – six of his seven runs were unearned, so take it for what it’s worth, but the guy walked three men and allowed four hits including a homer in 1.2 IP. Also in the “kind of not ok” category, Preston Packrall, who backed up Oliver and gave up six earned runs of his own. You’ll be kind of ok next time, guys.

Gregori Rivero hit his first pro home run for the GCL. You may recall he was given a six-figure bonus two years ago, and hit fairly well last summer as a 17-year-old in the VSL. And Jesus Alastre busted out of a little slump with a 3-4 plus a walk. After a hot start, he’s been good but not great in June and July, OPSing around .765 combined for the two months. For a 17-year-old, I’ll take it.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/11/2014 →

Some roster notes for you – Grady Sizemore was called up to the bigs and David Buchanan was optioned to make a 25-man spot for him. The Phils won’t need Buchanan for a while, especially if Cliff Lee is back July 19 as many people are predicting/reporting, (Matt Gelb being the one that sticks in my head as first reporting it as fact, rather than rumor or speculation, but I could be wrong on who had that scoop). Lee went to the 60-day DL to make a 40-man spot for Sizemore, but he’s eligible to return 7-18, so there’s a cut coming next weekend. I’ll guess it’s Tony Gwynn Jr., if they don’t go ahead and pull the trigger on a trade before then, or they could option someone and cut maybe Luis Garcia, I guess. I don’t think Jon Pettibone is eligible to go on the 60-day DL since he’s on the minor league DL right now, not the major league. That, my friends, is a dumb rule.

As for Thursday’s action, Cam Perkins was 2-5 with a triple, his second multi-hit game in a row, as he tried to bust out of his seemingly-endless AAA slump. The Lehigh Valley and Reading bullpens worked a combined eight innings of scoreless ball. Well done. Two more XBH for Brian Pointer, he’s OPSing near .750 now. Wonder if they’d challenge him shortly with a promotion to AA. He’s only been successful at A+ for about 100PAs, so they might still want to get him a little more experience. There’s only seven weeks left in the minor league season, so decisions like may come soon.

Every Lakewood Blueclaw save Carlos Tocci had a hit, led by two a piece from Willians Astudillo and Zach Green. Green’s been good lately – he’s got 16 hits in his last 10 games, five for XBH, and an OPS of .935 over that time. He’s nearly halved his K rate from over 30% last year to about 17% this year in what’s a reasonable ~170 PA sample. not bad. Jia Tromp (7) and Jan Hernandez (4) went deep for Williamsport, and catcher Sean McHugh from Purdue had his first three pro hits. Mitch Gueller was good again – that makes three in a row. He’s struck out 11 and walked just four over his last 18 innings as he tried to figure it out. If he gets comfortable with his pitches and amps up the velocity a little, as Mitch Rupert has reported the club feels is possible, you could see the Ks increase as well. We shall see.

GCL finished off the game that was suspended Wednesday, and played another. Freddy Galvis, Clete Thomas and Tommy Joseph all rehabbed in that second game. @BaseballBetsy reported that Joseph’s wrist was heavily wrapped, though he was behind the plate and not otherwise limited, so that’s good to hear. Franklyn Kilome’s been getting some interest and mentions on Twitter – the 19-year-old RHP seems like someone to watch as he gets stretched out.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/10/2014 →

Maikel Franco, Cam Perkins and Sebastian Valle had two doubles a piece for Lehigh Valley, and Franco added a walk, (his first in a while). He’s had multi-hit games in six of his last seven, and his last ten games’ OPS is .992. Feel, feel, feel, feel, feeeeuhl. Feel the heat. And speaking of feeling the heat, Brian Pointer is OPSing 1.082 in the second half of the season so far (~65 PAs). He had a really strong June and is continuing to hit in July, though he has been striking out a lot – 33k in 113 PAs since June 1 – that’s over 29%. Cliff Lee have up 3R on 4H, 1BB, 4K and a wild pitch in 4IP. Sounds like somewhere in the fourth inning, where he allowed all those runs, someone lost a ball in the lights, which counts as a hit but is not necessarily Cliff’s fault.

Aaron Altherr was 2-4 with two doubles and a walk for Reading. Kelly Dugan was 1-3 with two walks, as his OPS climbs above .800 for the year – his walk rate is around 9.5% over a decent ~110PA sample. That’s good to see after his AA total last year was a startlingly low 2.2%. Zach Green and Dylan Cozens had three hits a piece for Lakewood. Cozens line included a double, Green’s included two, and Andrew Pullin hit his seventh home run of the year. Not sure what’s keeping Samuel Hiciano on the bench, but he hasn’t played for two days in a row now. Could just be time off to try to pull out of the wretched slump he’s been in – OPSing .515 in 14 games since he was a SAL all-star. David Whitehead wasn’t dominant in picking up the win over Vermont, allowing 4R 3ER on 5H 1HR 0BB and 3K in 5.1IP. Williamsport pounded out six extra-base hits off of Lake Monsters’ pitching. Lake Monsters is a pretty good name for a team. Per Wikipedia: “The name references Champ, the legendary Lake Champlain monster which had been the team’s mascot since 1994.” Good to know. Also their home stadium, Old Centennial Field is the oldest stadium in minor league baseball. I don’t know if you guys have ever read things on this “Wikipedia”, but it’s filled with information. I recommend it. And every once in a while there’s stuff that people just made up and put on the page. It’s like a guessing game. Fun times.

Clete Thomas and Freddy Galvis are rehabbing with the GCL club now. The Phils and Yankees1 played 11 innings before the game was halted by rain, with Yoel Mecias going 5.2 innings as he works his way back from Tommy John. And Jesus Alastre was kept off base in the VSL for what seems like maybe only the third or fourth time this year.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 7/9/2014 →

Maikel Franco is having a good July. He’s OPSing 1.286 in six games, with six XBH and five multi-hit games. He was 2-4 with a triple on Tuesday, and Grady Sizemore also had two hits for Lehigh Valley, as Jason Marquis went five scoreless, striking out six, while allowing three walks and three hits. Aaron Altherr had three hits, as did Jake Fox. Ryan O’Sullivan is working out of the Reading rotation right now – he allowed two runs on five hits, walked none, struck out none, but did induce nine ground ball outs. That’s his game. Doubt it plays in the rotation long-term. MAG blew the save there, though there’s no way he was coming in to get a save in the fifth inning. Dumb stat. All we need to know is he struck out three and allowed a home run in two innings of work, and reports on Twitter had his fastball sitting in the mid 90s again.

Be sure to check out Jim’s report from the CLR game. Zach Green and Andy Knapp had two hits a piece for Lakewood. Willamsport’s Derek Campbell was a triple or a home run short of getting a thing named after him – he went 3-5 with two doubles and a homer. About 80 PAs into the year, and he’s OPSing over 1.000. Feliberto Sanchez threw five no-hit innings, striking out three and walking two to take the W for the Cutters. Luis Encarnacion had two hits including a triple for the GCL, while Austin Davis got roughed up in his two innings. Jose Taveras with his second monster start in a row, struck out 11 in eight innings for the DSL. And Ranger Suarez had a big game himself for the VSL – he struck out seven in six innings. The 18-year-old has 56ks and 1BB in 53.2 IP on the year. That’s a 56:1 K:BB ratio, in case you don’t want to have to do the math yourself. Those are video game/Severino-Gonzalez-in-the-VSL-type numbers. H/T to Jay Floyd ( @phoulballz )for pointing that insane ratio out on Twitter last week.

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