Friday’s News and Notes
All three affiliates won yesterday, highlighted by a 5-0, 15K shutout in Harrisburg
The Quick Rundown…
| Team | Yesterday’s Result | Today’s Game | Pitching Matchup (’10 Record @ Level) |
| Syracuse Chiefs | Won, 8-5 | @ Buffalo, 5:05 p.m. | Ross Detwiler (1-0, 1.80) vs. Jenrry Mejia (0-0, 1.13) |
| Harrisburg Senators | Won, 5-0 | vs. Bowie, 7:05 p.m. | Ryan Tatusko (12-3, 2.63) vs. Steve Johnson (7-8, 5.09) |
| Potomac Nationals | Did Not Play | vs. Lynchburg, 7:05 p.m. | Danny Rosenbaum (3-2, 2.09) vs. Arodys Vizcaino (0-0, 4.61) |
| Hagerstown Suns | Won, 3-2 | @ Rome, 7:05 p.m. | Matt Grace (1-2, 6.41 @ GCL/NYPL) vs. TBD (0-0, -.–) |
Editor’s note: We’re trying a slightly different format this year. The bullet points will highlight the SP, one or two outstanding RPs, and the game’s top two or three batters. When there’s some related tidbits, we’ll add sentence or two in italics. The mission is to keep this succinct and manageable, so there may be times when not every prospect gets a mention.
Syracuse 8 Buffalo 5
∙ Maya 4.2IP 8H 5ER 2BB 2K 1HR
∙ Kimball (W, 1-0) 1.1IP 0H 0R 0BB 1K
∙ Balester (H, 1) 1.2IP 2H 0R 0BB 2K
∙ Bynum 2-4, R, 1HR, 5RBI
∙ Bixler 2-4, R, 1-2B
Both the Syracuse Chiefs and the Buffalo Bisons scored all of their runs in the 4th and 5th innings. In fact, all five of Buffalo’s runs came off Chief’s starter, Yunesky Maya. Syracuse put eight runs up on the board, paced by 5 RBI (including a 3-run HR) from Seth Bynum, and was enough to give the Chiefs the win. The team got both stellar relief pitching (4 innings of shutout baseball), and the key hit when it mattered (3-for-6 with RISP).
Roger Bernadina was out of the lineup due a family issue and is expected out for a few games. Matt Chico appeared in relief while Josh Wilkie appeared in the ninth for the rulebook save. Chris Marrero went 0-for-3 with a run scored and an RBI.
Harrisburg 5 Bowie 0
∙ Meyers (W, 1-0) 5IP 4H 0R 0BB 9K
∙ Rodriguez 2IP 0H 0R 0BB 3K
∙ Moore 2-4, R, 2RBI
∙ Lombardozzi 0-2, 2R, 2BB
Pitching was the story last night, as Brad Meyers tossed five shutout innings, allowing only five hits and striking out nine. The bullpen, including Henry Rodriguez, Pat McCoy and Ryan Mattheus followed suit with four more goose eggs, one hit allowed and six more strikeout. No Harrisburg pitcher issued a walk. The Baysox moundsmen could not say the same, walking eight batters. Moore and Lombardozzi were the key hitters of the game, collectively batting 2-6, while scoring 3 runs from 2 walks and collecting 2 RBI.
Derek Norris went 0-for-2 with a walk, a stolen base, and a run scored. The OF was a veteran contingent of Jesus Valdez, Jonathan Tucker, and Buck Coats.
Hagerstown 3 Rome 2
∙ Selik (ND) 5IP 4H 0R 0BB 4K
∙ Graham (SV, 1) 2IP 0H 0R 0BB 1K
∙ Harper 2-4, SB, CS, RBI
∙ Oduber 1-3, 2R, BB, SB
Bryce Harper wasted no time in making his presence felt, driving in Randolph Oduber in the top of the 1st after the “Groovin Aruban” had drawn a walk and stolen second. Former reliever Cameron Selik got the start blanked the Rome nine for five frames and left with a 2-0 lead. Former starter Taylor Jordan was touched for two runs in the 6th to tie the game. Wade Moore walked, stole second, took third on an error and trotted home on a Jason Martinson single for what what proved to be the gamewinner in the top of the 7th. Ben Graham closed out the game with two innings of one-hit relief for the save.
Michael Taylor’s shift to the OF is now official, as he took CF, flanked by Oduber and Harper in LF and RF, respectively. David Freitas was the cleanup hitter and caught while Mills Rogers was the first baseman.
Thanks, Sue, the new format works for me.
All that great press that Meyers was getting the last 5-6 months was not exaggerated, at least so far.
Pretty soon it’s going to be very hard to justify keeping Bally & Kimball down on the farm for much longer.
Ditto, the new format is cool and copasetic for me as well. I think we can go Sickels on this stuff and have commenters post additional notes of interest or lines of guys they favor.
Welcome back, April! A good day for the orginization yesterday, going four-of-four.
Thanks, it’s good to be back– even more so, when they start impressively. Looking forward to seeing how they play throughout the season.
OOPS, my bad.
Sorry, April, didn’t even know that was you. It’s been a long time, I think 9 months, since that polar bear incident during your Hudson Bay excursion.
I’ll pay better attention next time.
Looks like Harper’s stay at H-town is going to be shorter rather than longer. Can’t wait to see him when he does join the P-Nats. 🙂
Thanks for the updates, Sue. It is good to see some box scores and highlights for games that count, sort of, back in our lives.
bdrube,
Just a guess, but I’m thinking Harper will get a bit longer stay on hagerstown so he can then jump potomac and move straight up to harrisburg. Just a guess, but I think they might want to keep the eury perez, ramirez, hood outfield trio intact in potomac and give them a full year.
Interesting side story within the Blue Wave piece by JJ Cooper in Baseball America. The Expos had so much young talent they added on a third A-level club ( 28 kids reached MLB). That would be a nice goal for the Lerner group. Also, ironic that baseballreference shows the expos were in the Norfolk area in the early 70s known as the Penisula Whips. Time will tell what will become of SYR and HARR as money dictates all action.
I predict a very strong team from Harrisburg this year – with Meyers, Tyler Moore, Derek Norris and Rhinehart (‘Dolla Bill’ won’t go to the majors, he is a strong hitter who will help the team). Three of these guys will see action in the bigs this year or next. Henry Rodriguez is a strong plus, too.
Sue_D, Springfield_fan, others: How does Potomac get the word out in case of rainouts, or do they? Given the current weather, I’m wondering if they’ll get the game in tonight.
Don’t count on it. That outfield is a swamp anyway, and now they have a moon rill running through right field. Wait until you see it. Of course they may do what they did last year – cancel the game now, not tell anyone, and let you pay for parking, a ticket, and food for a game that has already been postponed.
My apologies for not responding to this until now — the system must have had a glitch. I try to keep the focus on the players here, and try not to criticize management (my friend Shawn has had some famous run-ins with Hagerstown) but I’ve always felt that the P-Nats response to rainouts has been less than adequate. Don’t bother calling — they’ll always say the game is on.
I understand the economics in that you don’t want to turn away people when there are only 70 gates and each rainout represents a loss, especially on a weekend. So perhaps telling the general public that is one thing, but the STHs ought to be notified via e-mail the minute that call is made. One year, that’s what they did. The next year, they didn’t and it was even more noticeable because they had nearly a dozen rainouts.
No problems – When the skies really opened up around 6:00, I was still at home & dry. Once I saw that, there was no way they were getting that one in.
I agree that some type of notification system would be nice, either by e-mail or better yet on their web page. There may be games where the weather is decent, but the field is unplayable due to heavy rain earlier.
Happy to have MiLB back again. Though it is a bit different for me this year
Looking forward to the N&N all year long
“You can check out, but you can never leave”.