Monday’s News & Notes
| Team | Yesterday | Today | Pitching Probables |
| Rochester | Lost, 4-2 | OFF DAY | N/A |
| Harrisburg | Lost, 4-2 | OFF DAY | N/A |
| Wilmington | Won, 7-4 | OFF DAY | N/A |
| Fredericksburg | Lost, 11-4 | OFF DAY | N/A |
Lehigh Valley 4 Rochester 2
• Cavalli 5IP, 1H, 1R, 1ER, 3BB, 4K
• Garrett (L, 3-2) ⅓ IP, 4H, 3R, 3ER, 0BB, 0K, WP
• Noll 2-4, RBI, SB
• Meneses 1-3, BB
Rochester’s bullpen imploded in the 8th to turn a 1-1 tie into a 4-1 deficit en route to a 4-2 win for Lehigh Valley. Red Wings starter Cade Cavalli bounced back from his worst outing of the season with one of his best: one run over five innings on one hit, three walks, and four whiffs. He threw 88 pitches, 51 for strikes. The loss went to Reed Garrett, who retired just one of five batters faced and allowed three runs on four hits with nary a walk nor a whiff. Jake Noll singled twice and drove in a run to lead Rochester’s six-hit assault.
Portland 4 Harrisburg 2
• Guasch (L, 2-6) 4IP, 4H, 3R, 3ER, 3BB, 5K
• Troop 2IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 1K
• Millas 2-4, R, HR, RBI
• Harrison 2-4, R, 2B
The Sea Dogs posted a picket fence in the first three frames and took both the game and the series, 4-2. Richard Guasch gave up those three runs on four hits and three walks over four innings to lose for the sixth time in eight starts. Alex Troop added two goose eggs and Matt Cronin extended his scoreless innings streak to 11 with another clean inning, preserving his 0.00 ERA. Drew Millas and K.J. Harrison both went 2-for-4 with a run scored, with Millas hitting his first HR and Harrison hitting his sixth double. Jacob Rhinesmith had the sole hit in nine RISP chances, as Harrisburg left on seven baserunners.
Wilmington 7 Jersey Shore 4
• Merrill 2⅔ IP, 3H, 2R, 2ER, 3BB, 3K, 2HR
• Chu 2⅓ IP, 1H, 1R, 1ER, 0BB, 1K, HR, 3-0 IR-S
• Vega 3-4, R, 2RBI
• Meregildo 3-5, 3R, HR(5), 3RBI
• Baker 3-5, R, 2-2B, 2RBI,
Omar Meregildo’s two-run HR broke open a 2-2 game in the 3rd as Wilmington withstood three HRs to take the series finale, 7-4. Matt Merrill was tanned for two solo HRs and three hits total over two and 2/3rds innings. He walked three and struck out three. Gilberto Chu bailed him out of a bases-loaded jam and went two more innings, allowing the third solo shot to Jersey Shore in the 5th to get credit for the win. The Blue Rock offense marched to a twelve-hit parade, with Onix Vega, Meregildo, and Darren Baker each having three hits and combining for all seven RBI.
Delmarva 11 Fredericksburg 4
• Collins (L, 2-1) 2⅓ IP, 4H, 6R, 6ER, 1BB, 1K, 2HBP
• Ribalta 1⅔ IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 1K, 3-1 IR-S
• J. Young 3-4, 2R, 3B, SB
• Emiliani 2-4, R, HR(5), RBI
The Shorebirds didn’t sweep the FredNats, but five out of six isn’t much better as Delmarva took the series finale from the FredNats, 11-4. Brendan Collins took the loss with six runs allowed on four hits, one walk, and two Victor Robles over two and a 1/3rd innings. Bryan Peña dug the hole deeper with four runs on five hits, including two HRs, over the next nine batters faced. Jacob Young singled twice and tripled once while stealing a base and Leandro Emiliani launched his fifth HR. Steven Williams delivered the one (1) hit in 16 RISP chances as Fredericksburg was unable to capitalize on seven walks drawn.
STRASBURG, ROSS TO REHAB TOMORROW (MAYBE)
With the obligatory caveat that rehab starts are (mostly) overrated, Stephen Strasburg and Joe Ross will be rehabbing tomorrow in Fredericksburg and Harrisburg, respectively… weather permitting in Fredericksburg. Ross will be taking or bumping Cole Henry’s spot (presuming he was only skipped from his last turn) while Strasburg will more likely simply bump Bryan Caceres, given the heavy workload of the FredNats ‘pen of late. Both pitchers will reportedly go four innings and/or 60 pitches.
Delmarva was a lousy 10-23 when the series started and Fredericksburg was bad all week. The theme all week was terrible numbers with RISP. Not sure how you fix it.
On the good side Matt Cronin has now pitched over 16 innings and has an ERA of 0.00.
After 42 games Luis Garcia has an OPS of .963.
Omar Meregildo is now deep into his 3rd season in A+ ball (178 total games). He’s batting a healthy .285/.367/.469 at age 24 (turns 25 later this summer). It looks like this is his last chance at relevancy. What’s keeping him from being promoted to Harrisburg? Certainly not KJ Harrison batting .221/.303/.394 or MiLBFA Wilson Garcia…
Plus it would free up some room to ease the Fburg logjam.
I wonder when the powers that be will finally make a few moves. As Mark L already pointed out, Cronin is also being wasted in low-leverage outings in Harrisburg.
Jose Rojas DFAd by Angels who hit well BA Fresno a few years ago .
Hmmmm. Watson might kick the tires there ?
Leaderboard
OPS (60+ AB)
1 Garcia ROC 963
2 Banks ROC 961 (IL)
3 de la Rosa FRE 948
4 Gushue HBG/ROC 941
5 Barrera ROC 911
6 VPena FRE 909
7 Meneses ROC 880
8 Emiiani FRE 842
9 Meregildo WIL 836
10 Infante FRE 833
Followed by: G Diaz WIL 826 Connell HBG 816 House FRE 815
ERA (26+ IP)
1 Theophile FRE 1.66
2 Parker WIL 2.39
3 Tetreault ROC 3.40
4 Saenz FRE 3.45
5 Fuentes HBG 3.55
A couple of honorable mentions (not quite reaching 26 innings yet):
ELee HBG 2.88 (IL), Shuman WIL 2.92
ERA (14-26 IP)
1 Cronin HAR 0.00
2 Henry HBG 0.92
3 Brzykcy WIL 1.15
4 Schlabach WIL 1.29
5 Ferrer FRE 1.59
6 Irvin WIL 1.64
7 Stainbrook WIL 1.88
8 Yankosky WIL 2.33 (zero walks in 19.1 IP)
9 Brill HBG 2.45
10 Pena WIL 2.50
Thanks for the info!
That’s an incredible stat on Yankosky, I presume he’s a soft-tosser, otherwise we would be reading glowing reports on his prospect status. His ERA is a very good 2.33 too.
Agree that if the Nats are not going to promote Cronin at least make him the closer.
While I like looking at minor league stats as well as anybody, there’s already a grain of salt aspect. We’ve seen people like Jefry Rodriguez who never seemed to put up really good numbers in the minors get to be major league pitchers. Joan Adon is another example of someone with rather high minor league ERA’s who was fast tracked.
I also never noticed any great minor league numbers from people like Wander Suero or Matt Grace who eventually had significant time with the big club.
There’s probably a good argument that it is more important for a pitcher to start flashing something that can get major league hitters out, rather than being consistently good at the level they are at.
I was at a Natsfest at the convention center once, and I asked a question of Blake Treinen about how he never seemed to produce great numbers in the minor leagues but seemed to have an apparent breakthrough in spring training. He (along with other minor leaguers on the panel) made the following points:
– Breakthrough can be due to coaching, but sometimes “just happens”
– One guy (I think it was Erik Davis) said everyone knew Blake had great potential – he could throw 98 with sink, and it was just a matter of doing it consistently.
– Don’t believe minor league stats too much. One panelist said he was told to “work on his inside fastball” in a particular game instead of calling pitches the normal way. Sometimes a player is just “working on something”.
I can list a bunch of relief pitchers in our system with nice ERA’s, especially in Wilmington. But maybe Fuentes, Parker, Saenz et al. would have the same excellent results pitching 1 inning every few games.
What’s most frustrating to me is how so many of the MiLB.tv feeds have an SD-quality CF camera… if they have one at all. Harrisburg is one such example. Others rely on the overhead angle (like Delmarvba) that’s useless for evaluating pitchers. I miss my seat at the shitz, er, Pfitz because I could see enough to know by watching how the catcher reacted whether a pitcher was hitting his spots (when he’s not the catcher will be moving his shoulders a lot).