Sean O’Sullivan managed the Lehigh Valley game well in a losing effort, but the offense just didn’t get it done against Tommy Hanson. Maikel Franco drew his second walk in two days, which seems good, but Jim Murphy‘s solo home run (4) was all the scoring the Pigs could muster.

Severino Gonzalez didn’t have it working on Tuesday – he gave up 4R on 6H, 4BB, 2K over 6IP. He’s been struggling some this year, but as the season wears on, we’ll find out a lot more about the young Panamanian. Remember that he is one of the fifteen or so youngest guys in the Eastern League, and last spring he was ticketed for the New York Penn League. He’s going to have setbacks. How he responds over the course of this full season will tell a much greater tale than where he sits on May 6th.

Colin Kleven scattered six hits and allowed just one run in six innings, and Brian Pointer hit a two run home run in the top of the ninth to salt away Clearwater’s second victory in as many days. Colt Murray stranded two batters for a one-out save in that game, his second save in as many days. He’s on the Harold Martinez career path, though, so unless he’s promoted and starts doing good work at AA, or we hear scouting reports saying he’s “finally figured it out”, or that he’s “poised to turn the corner”, or something to that effect, I’ll choose to not get too excited about his stats.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5/6/2014 →

A friendly reminder that Harold Martinez is on his third trip through the Florida State League, and that ten game samples don’t prove a whole lot, and they prove even less when you’re a 24-year-old playing against a bunch of 21 and 22 year-olds. Also 30 more PAs without another walk and his rate will round down to 1%.

Tyler Henson hit his third home run in two days, and Leandro Castro was 3-4 with a walk-off caught stealing. Yes, that last part’s bad. Wouldn’t have been an issue if the bullpen and Barry Enright hadn’t collapsed int he 7th and 8th innings. You should read the recap of those two innings. Pretty amazing.

Three hits for Cesar Hernandez. He’s clearly a big league level hitter stuck in AA. Whether the glove comes around at more than second base, at least he’s getting his time at the plate. Austin Wright threw a clean inning with 1K – it’s his first base-on-ball-free outing of the year. Like to see him string together a handful of those and put himself back in the discussion as a bullpen arm.

Not much offense for Lakewood, and Mark Leiter Jr. put up his second lackluster performance in a row. That may be generous – I’m not sure the last one qualified even as “lackluster”, though it certainly lacked something…not sure what it was…outs, I guess.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5/5/2014 →

Tyler Henson hit for the Big Wheel, y’all. Two home runs, a double and a single, plus he drove in seven runs and scored twice. That’s a pretty nice day’s work. The Reading Fightins put up 15 runs on 18 hits, with home runs from Aaron Altherr (2) and Tommy Joseph (5). Jesse Biddle gave up 2R on 3H, 1HR, 3BB, 6K in 7IP. That’ll do, I guess, though three walks after the five he allowed his last time out didn’t do much to allay my main concern about his game.

Milwaukee’s 2012 1st Rounder Victor Roache hit three home runs off of Clearwater pitching. He led the NCAA in dingers in 2011 and hit 22 last year in his pro debut in Low-A. Ethan Martin worked a scoreless inning as he began his official rehab assignment on the way back from a shoulder ailment, allowing no hits and a walk with no Ks.

And on to the main event, a nine round slug fest, between a bunch of crabs and a bunch of tourists. Sounds like a day at the beach, right? Well, not if you’re a pitcher! *makes fake rimshot noise by tapping desk and going “psshh” with mouth* Lakewood beat Asheville 14-11, outhitting the Rockies’ affiliate 22-15. J.P. Crawford led the hit parade with a 4-5 day, including his third home run, and also drew a walk. Also going yard were Dylan Cozens (3), Willians Astudillo (2), Andrew Pullin (3) and Samuel Hiciano (3). All five men, plus Carlos Tocci and Mitch Walding had multi-hit games. All nine Blueclaws had hits.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5/4/2014 →

Perci Garner with the line of the night – He struck out nine, walked two and allowed just two hits in six scoreless innings. Like many others, I’ve been waiting for them to turn him loose in the bullpen. If he manages his starts this well going forward, though, he’ll probably stay in the rotation for a while.

Cesar Hernandez was 3-4 with his third long ball of the year, and Ken Giles allowed one BB and struck out two in a scoreless ninth in that Reading contest. Sebastian Valle‘s home run lifts Lehigh Valley and David Buchanan to a victory. Cesar Jimenez, Justin De Fratus and Luis Garcia each took scoreless turns out of the bullpen to lock down that victory.

Samuel Hiciano pulls off what I believe is the first “Zach Green Special” of the year – that’s 2-5 with 2K and 2 XBH, for those who don’t recall – Hiciano was 2-5 with a homer, a double and two strikeouts, and is now OPSing near .800 in a reasonable league for his age. His K rate is just below 25%, which is about as high as you’d like it for a power hitter, and he’s got 10 XBH in just over 100 PAs. I remain intrigued. J.P. Crawford, Mitch Walding and Dylan Cozens each added multi-hit games as Lakewood starter Tyler Viza and reliever Keivi Rojas pitched well enough to allow their offense to come back against Asheville’s bullpen.

And finally, Clearwater was rained out again and again. Both games of their double header in Daytona were sacked by rain for a second straight day. The whole series was a washout, as The Threshers start a traditional three-game Sunday thru Tuesday set at Brevard County today.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5/3/2014 →

Maikel Franco was 2-5 with a double and Jim Murphy hit his second home run of the year in support of Jonathan Pettibone, who allowed 1R on 4H, 1BB, 5K in 5IP. His bullpen backed him up well, throwing four scoreless innings, including two from Phillippe Aumont, who allowed one hit and had one K. Tyson Gillies left the game in the third inning after diving back into first on a Ronny Cedeno line drive. @TomHousenick says it sounds like trouble with his left wrist. We’ll have to wait and see how that pans out, but figure a guy with Gillies luck will probably miss a ton of time that someone with reasonable karma on their side would not.

Cesar Hernandez went deep, Aaron Altherr had two hits, including a run-scoring double off of a rehabbing Doug Fister, and Cameron Perkins was on base twice. Unfortunately, Hoby Milner gave up four bombs to Harrisburg. That’s not a recipe for success, in case you were wondering, but it does beat…

Mark Leiter Jr. couldn’t escape the first inning. He recorded just one out while allowing six earned runs. He left the bases full, but Carlos Tocci threw out a runner at the plate trying to tag on a flyball out off of reliever Julio Reyes. Neither Reyes, nor Delvi Francisco, nor Cody Forsythe could stop the bleeding, however, as Asheville put up 14 runs on 16 hits and four Lakewood errors. I’m not the kind of guy who likes to tell people how to do their jobs, but were I, I would suggest they do it “better”. Damn, I should be a manager.

On the bright side, four Lakewood Blueclaws had two hits a piece – Dylan Cozens had two doubles, Andrew Pullin had a single and his second home run, Samuel Hiciano had a single and a double, and Willians Astudillo had two singles.

Continue reading Box Score Recap – 5/2/2014 →