The Phils end Week Seven having won 2 consecutive games againt New Hampshire, leaving Reading at 23-21 on the year, in 4th place in the Southern division, 2.5 games behind front running Trenton. After one more game against New Hampshire, Reading travels to Portland for a four game series before returning home to face Bowie. In the batting leaders category, Javon Moran continues to lead the league in runs (36), hits (52), is second in the league with 16 Stolen bases, and eighth in league in average at .310. Jesus Merchan is 6th in the league with 44 hits, and continues to lead the league with a .383 batting average. Mike Costanzo is third in the league with 8 homers and leads the league with 60 strikeouts. The Phils have 2 players in the top 10 in RBI’s as Greg Jacobs is 3rd with 27 and Juan Tejada is 7th with 25. In the pitching categories, Landon Jacobsen is tied for second in the league with five wins, Kyle Kendrick continues to lead the league in innings pitched with 60 and Matt Maloney ranks 10th with 40 strikeouts.
Mike Zagurski called up?
Just had an e-mail hit my inbox stating Zagurski has been called up and will be in the bullpen on Friday. This leads to me to believe, if true, that Myers is headed to the DL. Stay tuned, nothing official yet, and it could just mean one of the guys who never sees the light of day (Hernandez, Yoel) could be waived.
Brennan King Interview
Brennan King is the six foot three inch twenty six year old third baseman for the 2007 Ottawa Lynx. One would think that holding down a key spot on the infield and finding yourself the team leader in home runs, (2), and RBI, (23), and second on the team in doubles and, (7), second in slugging and an average of .297 would get you some recognition but King isn’t that type of player.
“I see my role on this team as just one of twenty five guys who has to do his job in order for the team to be successful,” says King. “That’s all I can do really as this team has a lot of good players on it.”
Random thoughts….
* Kyle Drabek’s full season debut has been a success on a lot of levels. Some of his numbers, particularly his walk rate and home run aren’t where you want to see them, but his strikeout numbers have been fine, and more importantly, he’s getting a lot more groundballs than flyballs, with a 2.1 GB:FB ratio to this point. His control was great in April, not so good in May, but it’s all part of the learning curve. Lefties are hammering him to the tune of a .923 OPS, while righties have only posted a .650 OPS. To me it says that his changeup isn’t where he wants it to be yet, but it will get there.
* Adrian Cardenas has been miserable against LHP. This isn’t uncommon, for a player getting his first taste of full season ball, against good pitching, to struggle against lefties. Cardenas’ batting average has been constant from day 1, around .272, but his OB% has gone from .297 in April to .326 in May, that’s a step in the right direction, but more importantly, his slugging jumped from .388 to .481, a vast improvement. Cardenas is also hitting much better away from pitcher friendly Lakewood, with an away line of .333/.370/.533 compared to his home line of .194/.234/.306. I’ve detailed it before, but Lakewood is basically the toughest hitting park in the SAL.
* Greg Golson has had an interesting season. His splits really indicate he is two different players. Against LHP, his line is .240/.291/.280, and against RHP, his line is .314/.347/.471. This isn’t a one year trend, because while he generally sucked it up all around last year, he was better against righties than lefties. In May, Golson has drawn 7 walks in 95 PA’s, while he drew only 4 walks in 110 PA’s in April, but his slugging % has dipped from .490 in April to .337 in May. Is he becoming too passive? Is he just not making solid contact? Does he just stink? Who knows.
* Josh Outman has been a bit of a disappointment to me. I knew coming into this year that his success hinged directly on his ability to throw strikes, and so far, it’s been a struggle. He’s averaging 5.86 BB/9 to go with only 8.23 K/9, and that just isn’t going to get it done. If he can’t lower his walks into the 3.00/9 range, his future lies in the bullpen, but even that will be a struggle. His home run rate has also climbed a bit this year, as he’s given up 5 in 47 IP (0.96/9) as opposed to the 5 he gave up in 155.2 IP last season. Again, the Lakewood factor can’t be stated enough.
Clearwater Report: A Week to Forget
This past week was not a good one for the Clearwater Threshers. On May 14th the team was just one game out of first place and the pitching staff owned the lowest overall ERA in the entire Florida State League. After the next seven games where the team lost all but one, including two games where they gave up 13 runs and 16 runs back-to-back to the first-place Sarasota Reds they are now five games behind the Reds, and the team’s ERA has fallen to sixth in the league.
The week began on an ominous note with the Threshers losing in 10 innings to the last place Ft. Myers Miracle (Twins). Going into the tenth inning tied at 1-1 the Threshers picked up two runs to take a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the inning. Brett Harker came in out of the bullpen to close the game since the Threshers ace closer Mike Zagurski had been promoted to Reading two days prior. Though Harker had four saves on the year, the situation seemed alien to him on this night. He walked the first batter, gave up a single, then walked another to load the bases. He then gave up back-to-back singles as the Miracle scored 3 runs to down the Threshers 4-3.
More draft stuff to ponder
After I wrote last Friday’s article about the draft, Jim Callis at Baseball America posted his first mock draft, trying to predict where everyone would go in the first round. Here are his picks from 13-23
13. CLE – Blake Beaven, RHP
14. ATL – Jason Heyward, OF
15. CIN – Kevin Ahrens, SS/3B
16. TOR – Matt Dominguez, 3B
17. TEX – Julio Borbon, OF
18. STL – Matt Wieters, C
19. PHI – Devin Mesoraco, C
20. LAD – Josh Smoker, LHP
21. TOR – Pete Kozma, SS
22. SFG – Casey Weathers, RHP
23. SDP – James Simmons, RHP
Player Profile: Jeremy Slayden
The latest player profile will cover a guy that a lot of people are talking about, outfielder/DH Jeremy Slayden. The Phillies, especially over the last two seasons or so, have seen their system produce very few position prospects even worth talking about, after graduating all star caliber talent like Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. With Slayden, many feel we may actually have a true hitter on our hands, as opposed to the “quality athletes who can’t play” that the system has produced an abundance of in recent years. But as Kevin Goldstein pointed out in his Q/A for us, most great players are quality athletes, the trick is just teaching them how to play the game and how to become baseball guys. With Slayden, it seems he already knows how to play, but the question is, does he have the tools?
A thank you is in order
Normally you’d find the Monday Morning 6 Pack here, but I am in the process of signing a lease for a new apartment, and still trying to get work done, so I don’t have time to put together the update right now. However, hopefully I’ll be back with that tomorrow, plus a few more things in the pipeline. I’ll roll out my Jeremy Slayden profile this week, as well as more on the draft, and maybe some other stuff as well. However, I want to take this space and thank each and every one of you who have come to the blog since I started last December. We hit a bit of a milestone today…
When I started writing, I thought I might do it for a day or two, maybe a week, and I guessed that maybe 20 people would read it. Well, 181 posts later, 806 comments later, and 100,000+ visits later, I’m still at it. Thanks again for all the support, thanks for continuing to come back, and thanks for telling your friends about the site. I keep writing because you keep coming, and I’ll continue as long as there is interest. Thanks again, and happy Monday.
Thinking about the 2007 Draft, Part 2
We’ve started to look at the 2007 draft here, and at about a month away, things will begin to take shape over the next few weeks, with players raising and lowering their respective stock and settling in somewhere on the overall board. Baseball America has updated their draft tracker, and a few guys in our general area have changed spots. Lets see who has moved up and down, who might be within reach, and who has probably moved out of reach.
Ottawa Lynx Report Week Six
Ottawa Lynx Week Six
The Ottawa Lynx continued their ten day eleven game road trip in Indianapolis Friday May 11-Monday May 14 hoping to gain some ground on division rivals Buffalo and Pawtucket before opening up an eight game home stand against the two teams. Once again they were scheduled to face one of the leagues best pitching staffs as they attempted to climb further over the .500 mark and closer to Buffalo and Rochester in the standings. When a team is having trouble offensively, the Indianapolis starting staff is not what the doctor ordered. Game one saw Ottawa put some runs on the board on a rare night when the pitching wasn’t there but the bats carried the day. The Lynx put seven runs across the plate winning 7-6, Brennan King driving in the go aheads run with two out in the top of the ninth and Brian Sanches picked up the save, (his sixth), pitching a scoreless ninth. Lynx starter Zach Segovia put Ottawa in an early hole, down 5-0 after three innings but the offense came alive tying the game with a five run sixth inning. Both starters were gone by then and it came down to a battle between the bullpens with Ottawa winning out. King ended the day with three RBI for Ottawa.
