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Thursday’s News & Notes

Team Yesterday Today Probable Pitchers
Syracuse ALL-STAR BREAK vs. Durham,
6:35 p.m.		 TBD vs.
Faria (1-0, 0.60)
Harrisburg ALL-STAR BREAK @ Altoona,
7:00 p.m.		 TBD vs.
McRae (2-4, 10.25)
Potomac Won, 7-2 @ Winston-Salem,
7:00 p.m.		 Fedde (5-3, 4.13) vs.
Lowry (6-6, 4.13)
Hagerstown Won, 12-3 vs. Asheville,
7:05 p.m.		 Bourque (0-4, 7.36) vs.
McCormick (0-1, 14.29)
Auburn Won, 8-4 @ West Virginia,
7:05 p.m.		 Dunning (NYPL debut)
vs. TBD


Syracuse – ALL STAR BREAK
Brian Goodwin started in CF and went 1-for-3 with a run scored in the International League All-Stars’ 4-2 win over the Pacific Coast League All-Stars. Rafael Martin struck out the lone batter he faced to finish the 8th to earn a hold.

Harrisburg – ALL STAR BREAK
Neftali Soto was the DH and went 2-for-3 with a HR and a walk in the Western Division’s 10-2 loss in the Eastern League All-Star game. Tyler Mapes and Andrew Robinson both pitched a scoreless inning of relief with one hit allowed.

Potomac 7 Winston-Salem 2
• Blackmar (W, 2-0) 7IP, 5H, R, ER, 3BB, 5K, WP
• Mendez (SV, 2) ⅔ IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 0K, 3-0 IR-S
• Keller 2-4, 2R, BB
• Read 1-3, 2R, 2BB, CS, PB(13)
• Marmolejos 2-5, R, 2B, RBI

Potomac got four in the 4th and two in the 5th and seven strong innings from Mark Blackmar in 7-2 win over Winston-Salem. Blackmar won his second start for the P-Nats with one run allowed on five hits and three walks while striking out five. Mario Sanchez struggled again and left the bases loaded with one out in the 9th for Gilberto Mendez, who cleaned up the mess to earn the bare-minimum save (five-run lead, tying run on deck). Jose “Orange” Marmolejos, Victor Robles, Max “For Those About To” Schrock, and Alec Keller each had two hits in the 11-hit attack on Dash pitchers while Raudy Read and Osvaldo Abreu both walked twice.

Hagerstown 12 Asheville 3
• Bourque (W, 1-4) 5IP, 3H, R, ER, 2BB, 2K
• Hearn (H, 2) 3IP, 1H, 1R, 0ER, 2BB, 3K, WP
• Page 3-4, 3R, 2B, 3B, BB, 4RBI
• Encarnacion 2-4, R, BB, RBI, 3SB
• Mesa 2-4, 2R

The Suns burned the Tourists pitchers for nine runs in the first four innings en route to a 12-3 victory. James Bourque turned in his best outing with five innings of one-run ball on three hits and two walks. He struck out two while earning his first win of 2016. Matthew Page reached base four times and drove in four while Randy Encarnacion, who singled twice, walked once, and stole three bases to lead Hagerstown’s 12-hit, eight-walk offense.

Auburn 8 Vermont 4
• Mills 4IP, 8H, 2R, 1ER, 2BB, 6K, 2WP
• Conner (W, 1-1) 2IP, 2H, R, ER, BB, 3K
• Fuentes (SV, 3) 3IP, 5H, R, ER, BB, 2K, BK
• Gutierrez 3-4, 3R, 2-2B, RBI, SB
• Banks 2-4, 2B, 2RBI
• Johnson 2-4, R, RBI

The hit ’em hard and hit ’em early motif for the “A” teams on Wednesday began with Auburn’s 8-4 win over Vermont. The Doubledays put up three in the 1st and one in the 2nd to take an early 4-0 lead, then repeated those tallies in the 7th and 8th. McKenzie Mills labored through four innings (82 pitches) and gave up two runs on eight hits and two walks while striking out six. Nick Conner got the win with one run let in over two frames. Steven Fuentes closed out the game with one run allowed over three innings on five hits and a walk. The 2-3-4 sequence of Dan Johnson, Kelvin Gutierrez, and Nick Banks combined for seven hits, three doubles, four RBI, and four runs scored.

15 Commments

  1. Matthew Page has earned a promotion. At his advanced age (24), they’re freer to be aggressive with him.

    Also, I’ll ask again, what’s Gutierrez still doing on rehab in Auburn? He was playing really well in Hagerstown (.303/.342/.419), then missed a couple weeks because of an injury, and has been on rehab assignment for 2 weeks now in Auburn. He’s now almost spent as much time rehabbing as he did on the DL. There’s no roster issues, as Cody Dent and Grant Debruin are starting in his absence.

    1. Great minds think alike, as I was posting the same thing about Gutierrez at the same time you were.

  2. Schrock now has exactly two hits in each game for the last seven and eight of the last nine . . . and has seen his average drop in every one of those games since it’s still over .400.

    As others have mentioned, I don’t get why Gutierrez is still at Auburn, technically on a “rehab assignment,” all the more so with a high draft pick in Neuse also there to play 3B. Dent and DeBruin have been manning 3B at Hagerstown in his absence, neither of whom figure to “block” him at all. In fact, there was a good bit of speculation before Gutierrez got dinged that he was close to promotion to Potomac.

  3. Schrock had his seventh consecutive multi hit game last night, which was the second time he’s had multiple hits in 7 consecutive games during his 17 game hitting streak. Interestingly, Brandon Watson! holds the Nats minor league hitting streak record with 43 games at Columbus in 2007. Watson’s was the only 40-plus game minor league streak post-1961 until a Cleveland farm hand had a 45 game streak two years later.

    1. KW – looks like we were typing at the same time. 🙂

      I would also like to hear what’s going on with Anderson Franco. It’s like he dropped into a black hole or something.

      1. I’m not on Twitter, but maybe someone who is can tweet at Byron Kerr to see what he can scrape up on the mysterious missing Mr. Franco. While you’re at it, ask about Andrew Lee as well.

        1. I’m not a Twit either, but I left a comment on a recent Kerr posting asking the question about Franco. So far, nada–no response from him.

          1. Lacy Lusk tweeted about a month ago that Franco tweaked his back, but I see anything more recent, and Lusk didn’t know how long Franco would be out.

  4. Wonder what the record is for consecutive multi-hit games. To have two streak of 7 consecutive multi-hit games is ridiculous.

  5. Here’s a question for Luke and whoever else might have some visibility on Potomac: what has become of the P-Nats’ new stadium? Talk and planning were so hot and heavy three or four years ago that I thought it would be built by now. I haven’t even seen or heard anything about it in the last year or so, though. I thought it was supposed to be in the general vicinity of the Dale City Wegman’s along I-95, but I was never clear exactly where. When they cleared ground next to the NOVA community college campus a couple of years ago, I thought that might be it, but then they built apartments/condos.

    Just curious if anyone knows anything. Along the same lines, is the Fredericksburg effort to spirit away the Suns from Hagerstown still ongoing, or did that lose steam?

    1. At this time the P-Nats stadium is back to square one. The land has been sold to a new developer who is not honoring any agreement held between the P-Nats and the previous developer. It has been 20 years since Art Silber mentioned building a new stadium and still no progress. Don’t hold your breath.

      2. The dirty little secret is that while a new stadium might be more profitable, the POS old stadium is pretty damn profitable already. Hence, the lack of urgency.

  6. Who gets bump once Page pumped
    To PotomAc. ?
    I will go with Wright State alum
    Over Ripkin

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