NationalsProspects.com

Wednesday’s News & Notes

Team Yesterday Today Probable Pitchers
Syracuse Lost, 6-5 @ Scranton/Wilkes-Barre,
7:05 p.m.		 Cole (5-0, 3.29) vs.
Mitchell (4-1, 2.40)
Harrisburg Lost, 5-4 vs. Portland,
7:00 p.m.		 Rivero (1-6, 6.11) vs.
Haley (0-2, 0.98)
Potomac Won, 3-2;
Postponed		 @ Lynchburg,
6:05 p.m.		 Bacus (4-6, 4.65) and
Turnbull (2-3, 5.54) vs.
Parsons (4-5, 4.52) and
Sims (7-9, 4.36)
Hagerstown Won, 5-0 vs. Greensboro,
7:05 p.m.		 Pivetta (12-8, 4.28) vs.
Wertenberger (1-1, 4.30)
Auburn ALL-STAR BREAK @ State College,
7:05 p.m.		 Bourque (1-5, 4.50) vs.
Perez (5-1, 3.52)
GCL Nationals Lost, 5-2 vs. GCL Marlins,
12:00 p.m.		 TBD vs. TBD
DSL Nationals Won, 7-6 @ DSL Cardinals,
10:30 a.m.		 Fuentes (2-3, 2.30) vs.
Alcantara (1-8, 3.73)


Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 6 Syracuse 5
• Poveda 4⅔ IP, 5H, 3R, 2ER, BB, 4K, HR
• Martin (BS, 1; L, 1-1) ⅔ IP, 2H, 3R, 3ER, 2BB, K
• Dobbs 3-4, R
• E. Perez 2-4, R, BB, SB(20)
• Leon 2-4, R, RBI

The RailRiders drove a train through Rafael Martin’s perfect ERA in their 6-5 walkoff win over the Chiefs. In the 1st, Syracuse starter Omar Poveda allowed three straight singles before Sandy Leon’s crucial passed ball allowed Scranton to take a 2-0 lead. Jose “My Way” Pirela hit a solo shot to lead off the 3rd before the Chiefs responded with two runs in the 5th on three straight singles of their own and a Will “Skills” Rhymes sacrifice fly to foul territory in left. Three straight singles in the 6th resulted in Destin Hood scoring the tying run in his second game back from the DL. Tyler “WaPo’s 26th Man” Moore hit a two-run blast that scored Eury Perez to give Syracuse the 5-3 lead they would need to win. Sadly, the clock struck midnight for Rafael “Beer League” Martin. He loaded the bases on a walk, a single, and a walk before Jose “My Way” Pirela sent the Scranton fans into a delirious celebration with a bases-clearing triple to give Syracuse a deflating loss.
Roster moves: RHPs Omar Poveda, Sam Runion reassigned from Harrisburg; C Jeff Howell placed the 7-Day DL; RHP Scott McGregor placed on the 3-Day TIL; OF Nate Schierholtz assigned from Washington.

Portland 5 Harrisburg 4
• Voth 3+ IP, 6H, 3R, 3ER, BB, K, HR
• Holland (L, 6-3) 2IP, 1H, R, ER, 0BB, 3K, HR
• Martinson 4-4, R, HR, 4RBI, SB, CS
• Vettleson 1-3, BB

Jason Martinson tried to legislate a win for the cratering Harrisburg Senators in their 5-4 loss to the Portland Sea Dogs. Mr. Martinson clobbered a first-inning grand slam to right field and invited Cutter “Future Soprano” Dykstra, Matt “So Phat” Skole and Kevin “Special K’s” Keyes to join his committee at home plate and celebrate Harrisburg’s 4-1 lead. Starter Austin Voth later gave up a two-run homer to Stefan “Grapes” Welch in the 4th and was pulled for Paul Demny without recording an out. Demny gave up a solo shot to Carson “Me-Jay” Daly that tied the game at 4-4 in the top of the 6th. Keury “Gives You The Blues” De La Cruz hit a solo shot off Neil Holland in the 8th inning to give Portland the eventual 5-4 victory. Ric Flair wants you to know that Holland can wrestle for him any day of the week because he did strike out three Sea Dogs and hit the next batter after he gave up the home run.
Roster move: RHP Austin Voth activated from the 7-Day DL.

Potomac 3 Lynchburg 2 — GAME ONE
• Silvestre 4IP, 6H, R, ER, 0BB, 2K
• Henke (W, 4-1) 1⅔ IP, 4H, R, ER, 0BB, 2K
• Mendez 1⅓ IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 0K
• McQuillan 1-1, 3B, 2RBI
• Wooten 1-3, R, 2B

The P-Nats used a three-run 5th inning to extend their winning streak to four games, as they bested the Hillcats, 3-2, in the first game of what was supposed to be a doubleheader. After Lynchburg put up a run in the 1st inning, John Wooten and Khayyan Norfork led off the 5th with back-to-back hits, with Wooten scoring on a fielder’s choice by Estarlin Martinez. Mike McQuillan then put Potomac ahead for good with a two-RBI triple to right field. After Lynchburg scored a run in the 6th off winning pitcher Travis Henke, Gilberto Mendez shut down the Hillcats for his 12th save of the season.

Potomac vs. Lynchburg — GAME TWO, PPD
Potomac can’t seem to escape the rain as the second game of Tuesday night’s twinbill against Lynchburg was postponed. The P-Nats and Hillcats will now play a doubleheader today starting at 6:05 p.m.

Hagerstown 5 Greensboro 0
• Lopez (W, 3-1) 6IP, 2H, 0R, BB, 4K
• M. Rodriguez (SV, 1) 3IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 3K
• Mesa 3-4, R, 3B, RBI, CS
• Ward 1-3, R, BB, HR, 2RBI
• Kieboom 1-3, R, 2B, BB, RBI

Twenty-year-old Dominican Reynaldo Lopez and 25-year-old Cuban Manny Rodriguez joined forces to twirl a 5-0 victory over the Greensboro Grasshoppers for the Hagerstown Suns. Reynaldo Lopez kept first baseman Carlos Lopez busy with five groundouts to his infielders before Felix “Not Frankie” Munoz flied out to end the 2nd. Chris “I’m On First” Hoo singled to lead off the 3rd and break up the perfect game. Hoo would not make it home, however, because he was stranded at third when J.T. Riddle struck out. When wild Jose Adames plunked Rafael Batista in the bottom of the frame, Hagerstown retaliated with four runs on a Naricso Mesa triple, a Spencer “I Drop The” Kieboom double, and Drew Ward’s two-run homer to take a 4-0 lead. Following a Hagerstown unearned run in the fifth, Manny Rodriguez cruised to his first save for the Suns with three innings of one-hit ball.
Roster move: RHP Manny Rodriguez reassigned from Auburn; LHP Joseph Webb placed on the 7-Day DL.

Auburn — ALL STAR BREAK
The North All-Stars and the South All-Stars played to 1-1, nine-inning tie before a reported crowd of 7,230 (thus, the Cyclone owners were the winners ;-). Jose “Orange” Marmolejos-Diaz got the start at first base and went 1-for-2. Mario Sanchez got the last out of the game, retiring the only batter he faced.

GCL Marlins 5 GCL Nationals 2
• Costa (L, 0-1) ⅓ IP, 2H, 3R, 3ER, 0BB, 0K, HBP, WP
• Reyes 4IP, 3H, 0R, 0ER, 3BB, 4K, HBP, WP, 1-1 IR-S
• Tillero 2-4
• Guzman 1-3, R, BB

The G-Marlins picked up where they left off on Monday afternoon, scoring three in the 1st and cruising to a 5-2 decision. John Costa, who missed 2013 with TJ surgery after being drafted in the 13th Rd., retired just one of four batters faced and was charged with the loss. Jorge Tillero was the sole batter to notch multiple hits as the G-Nats collected eight total, but were an abysmal 2-for-14 with RISP.
Roster move: LHP Brandon Sisk reassigned from Harrisburg for minor-league rehab.

DSL Nationals 7 DSL Mariners 6
• W. Pena 5IP, 3H, R, ER, 2BB, 5K
• Morel (BS, 2; W, 3-1) 2IP, 1H, 1R, 0ER, 2BB, 3K, 1-1 IR-S
• A. Martinez 4-5, RBI
• Agustin 3-5, R, 2-2B, HR, 3RBI, CS
• Rengel 1-3, 2R, 2BB, CS

The D-Nats hit the 40-win mark for the first since 2008 with a 7-6 win over the D-Mariners. Wilber Pena got the start and let in one run on three hits and two walks while striking out five. He left with a 5-1 lead but the prosperity was too much for Miguel Vargas as he failed to retire a batter in the 8th as the D-Mariners took a 6-5 lead with a four-run rally. Andres Martinez’s fourth hit was the gamewinner, a two-run single that capped off a sloppy ninth inning that saw two errors, a walk, a wild pitch, and a runner thrown out at third with no outs. Melvin Morel got the benefit of the battle of who could play worse as he earned his third win despite blowing the save.

30 Commments

  2. A few notes/questions:
    1) Really enjoyed the Potomac writeup. Crisp, clean and to the point. Must be excellent editing.Guy handling the upper affiliates seems like a real smarty pants sometimes, and we might want to rein him in a little bit.
    2) How excited should we about the DSL team? This is a younger team with real prospects, correct? Lopez at Hagerstown felt like a legit DSL grad to me until I saw low strikeout rates. Can you translate lack of Ks and a high groundball rate to upper level success? Hopefully, Mr. Lopez will be a force for Potomac in 2015 and create greater incentives for a sterling infield at the Pfitz.
    3) Does last night’s wild meltdown spell the end of Rafael Martin’s bid for a September call up? My heart goes out to him and his family now that I have greater context for what life is like at Syracuse after the excellent story in the Washington Post on Tyler Moore. Has everybody here read that? Ought to be mandatory reading. Great to see WaPo investing some money in real journalism with a traveling reporter to far away Syracuse to follow Tyler Moore. That article will help Tyler Moore get more MLB at-bats on makeup along if he can get his AAA OPS back to around .900.
    4) Very cheered by Martinson’s rebound. Season highlight for him. Didn’t realize that he was such a good base stealer. While Wesley Snipes believes “White Men Can’t Jump”, Mike Trout and Jason Martinson remind us that they can certainly steal bases.
    5) After last year’s greatness, hard for me to get but so into the GCL games. Be fun to make a trip down there to see some of the GCL games, which are probably cheap and very accessible to the public.

    1. “we might want to rein him in a little bit”

      I have been biting my tongue on this, but the reports here have gotten really hard to read. The “jokes” and nicknames are really more annoying than funny. It is making this site one which I am considering not visiting anymore.

  3. Voth’s downward trending and short work last night right after a 7-day DL does nothing to make me warm and fuzzy.

    1. I realize that we all like Voth, but he’s really had a great year just to throw a pitch for Harrisburg this year. Dead arm period? I doubt they’d be challenging him with Harrisburg if there was an injury risk. If there is an injury risk, proactively shut him down and have him ready to be a staff ace for a healthy Senators team next year. Perhaps we can recruit some folks from the Waldorf Blue Crabs to fill out the Harrisburg roster in the interim. Some of those fine lads would probably love a few games in affiliate AA baseball. Kidding. I think?

    2. Voth is destined for AFL work thus the
      Speed brakes on Voth season conclusion .
      He may be the guy to pass Taylor Jordan
      As second behind treinen as Syr shuttle guy.

    1. Thanks for the helpful link on Lopez. I trust radar gun reports in Milb.com reports as far as I can throw them. The deal on Milb.com is that the teams and Milb are funding that site so you’re not going to get adverse data on prospects. My concern remains. If this guy is hitting 99 on the gun and his K rate is below 1K per inning, he’s got a straight fastball that might lead to an elevated home run rate by the time he hits the proving ground of AA. Great that he’s mowing them down in Auburn and Hagerstown. He’s earned the right to start at Potomac, but I’ve got to see if his ground ball act can play at the higher levels before I’d put him high on the dreaded ranked prospect lists.

      1. The Auburn Citizen had the Nats claiming he hit 100 MPH in extended. The same paper had him hitting 99 three times in his last start with Auburn. That is three separate sources.

        His K rate is not low. 25 Ks in 29 innings is really good. The Nats want weak contact and about 7K per nine if I remember correctly.

        I am sure all are devastated that you do not rank him highly on your prospect list. Clearly, you are as good at evaluating stats and prospects as you are at telling jokes.

        1. I saw Lopez in June and had the players working the gun swear to me that he can indeed hit 100 mph. As we’ve seen with Jake Johansen, that alone does not guarantee a high-K rate. That night Lopez didn’t have much beyond the heat.

          As it so happens, Tucker Blair from Orioles Nation has a report on him today which matches up with a lot of what I saw, but clearly Lopez’s secondary pitches are coming around. Since I don’t pretend to be anything but an amateur when it comes to scouting, I’d take his word for it over mine.

          If folks are interested, you can see his and a lot of other folks “eyewitness” accounts here.

          1. Shocked Baseball Prospectus lets you read those scouting reports as a nonsubscriber. Thanks mightily for the link. Sounds like the BP writer agrees with me. He’s got a plus fastball and some other stuff under construction. That plus fastball, however, is really plus and he sounds like he’s got a floor as a fireballing reliever. No Giolito for sure, but a guy that should get Sickels and Baseball America’s attention during next year’s offseason dreaded prospect rankings.

    1. I put in the jokes and nicknames because they’re fun for me to write, force me to think in the morning to make them relevant, and seem to be consistent with Luke’s writing style. My personal writing style is different than how I write for this site. If a majority of the readers say “No more nicknames, please just stick to the facts.” I’ll do that.

      I do appreciate feedback even when it’s negative. I doubt that you are the only person turned off by some of my jokes. I try to keep things positive and support the players. I do, however, feel that #thestraightdope, even if it’s from an “amateur scout” in Luke or a mere “box score reader” in me is healthier for fans than buying the hype that most of the folks trying to sell papers and page views write. I come to this site because Luke’s a good dude who has values and sticks to them. If that costs him some followers or page views or cash, so be it. If you create a website of this quality, I hope you’ll maintain the discipline and values to run it the way that you feel led.

      RedskinsJB321, I hope that you’ll reconsider your decision to give up on the site, but if you don’t, I wish you well wherever you seek coverage on the Nationals minor league affiliates. Perhaps you’d enjoy Patrick Reddington’s coverage at Federal Baseball.

  6. Soul D I was chatting up Latin arms early
    In the vaccum of all the mash unit arms lists .
    Nice grab by nats with Sisk as fireballer out of pen
    If winter sees some defections
    Love the way big boys score 8 runs without a benefit
    Of big fly.
    Soul D: some good things amidst crappy summer
    In burg. Poveda mcGregor Espino , who should
    Help a big club someday soon. These guys will
    Help next year cause the Potomac staff
    Is not 74 angels . Kkkkk. Bill singers gets that line!
    Ex cub/ Phil’s bench for matty9
    Johnny DiP should be proud of his Latin
    Lanceurs! And there is even a DLd lefty named
    E. Gomez who could join that lefty pipeline
    Behind Ott and others
    What is it with the Stanford jinx with pitchers
    For expo/ nats legacy. Mooneyham the latest.
    Stan Spencer started it in mtl.

    1. Last time I checked, Drew Storen went to Stanford. Isn’t he the best closer on the team if it weren’t for having to pay some dues following The Game That Shall Not Be Named? That said, Storen was a high draft pick and a fast tracked prospect and the guys you’re naming do feel like disappointments. Was Mooneyham ever somebody that people on this site were crazy about?
      Speaking of which, I wonder whatever happened to board whipping boy Trevor Holder…….

  7. Some people should just stick with football
    And leave the peace keepers to the Agrarian
    Game which does not need 5 hour energy
    Effect

    1. Guys, Redskinsjb321 brought up some good fodder for discussion — we shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on a screen name.

      1. I’m jumping to conclusions (jerk) based upon the fact that he/she didn’t even give you a chance to respond.

        As for the jokes, I could take ’em or leave ’em but if others enjoy them I won’t complain–especially since this site has so much valuable info and doesn’t charge for it.

      2. I’m with Luke on this one. He’s got an opinion, and it’s valid. If there’s a silent majority that will speak up and support him, I’ll dial down the nicknames. There’s a lot of inside jokes here for an insider audience. Minors fans can be a quirky lot. So, should I keep the nicknames and jokes or should I just write up the games? Just writing up the games means quicker writeups, but they also start duplicating things that can be found elsewhere on the internet. I feel that part of the charm of this site is that like Sickels (who I read some but simply don’t have time to keep up with all the content) is a bit of club with inside jokes that have a barrier of entry. If you want to just log onto this site and instantly find out who the Top 20 prospects are so that you can impress your friends with your “knowledge” of the #babyNats, this site may not be you in my opinion. If you want to be able to flag Michael BATMAN Taylor based on Luke’s daily observations of him in Potomac and my quick takes on him in Spring Training, Bowie, and Harrisburg you might outsmart Baseball America and be on the list of “I Told You So” insiders when Taylor goes yard in his first game. I feel Luke’s site has a voice and a niche and that’s really missing in today’s journalistic environment. You get stuck on the backwoods of the internet doing what he does. That said, I write baseball for readers, not my own amusement. Let me know if you want change and you’ll get it. Luke did, and I grew a great deal as a writer.

        1. Regular reader, infrequent poster because you guys are great at putting out information that I have no other way to get. I enjoy that you keep things light, and the nicknames in no way affect my ability to pick up info about the Nats minors. Thanks so much for writing this so well and so consistently.

          1. Thank you very much for your positive feedback. Luke gets the credit! I get the blame!

  8. FWIW, the minor league record for consecutive scoreless innings is apparently 59 by Irvin Wilhelm of the Birmingham Barons set in 1907 (yes, 107 years ago).

    Reynaldo Lopez’s current streak of 49 (or 46) is an incredible achievement, and is one of the longer streaks in recent minor league history. At 20 years-old, he has to be climbing the prospect ratings. Very impressive.

  9. Funny thing about the White Sox and Birmingham
    In the early 1900s is that when teams trained
    Around the hot springs or Deep South. Sox began their
    Ties with Birmingham !

  12. Tough call whether to listen to Syracuse or Hagerstown tonight. I like the Hagerstown announcer a bunch and he’s RTed me so Im leaning in that direction. Plus I kind of have a read on what I think about Cole from you Potomac heads who’ve seen a fair amount of him. I don’t know Hagerstown’s roster or lineup nearly as well so I’m leaning that direction. If I’m a prospect head or just somebody who loves baseball, however, an AJ Cole start is probably more important for the organization’s immediate future because he’s a Top 10 prospect in the system for sure.

  13. Friends I ask you to allow me to vent for a moment about our minor leagues and player development. I really do not understand how our pitching is being handled , and the amount of injuries we have had at every level. I do not blame one person but our pitching coordinator bites my sack. Seriously the reputation, the resume and the repsect that Spin Williams has is horrible. When will we make a change. When will Rizzo and Harris and compant realize that we are dealing with a crap individual who knows very little about very little. Please guys I love my Nats and especially my Potomac Nats but I have watched this guy in action and he is respected by very few in this game
    for christ sake make a change

  14. Would like to see evidence that Nats system suffers more pitching injuries than other organizations. Watching the D-Backs series, they have 5 pitches that were on or were supposed to be on the opening day roster out with arm injuries, including 3 starters (Patrick Corbin, Bronson Arroyo and Daniel Hudson). The point is that pitching injuries are fact of life in every organization. Even the A’s, who are known as the best at player development, have two young pitchers (Jarod Parker and AJ Griffin) done for the season with arm injuries. While I hate it when the Nats young arms go down, it happens in every organization and appears to be largely unavoidable.

  15. Pilchard with the highest level of respect to you an all readers, I have spoken to players,coaches and scouts. Spin needs to spun out of our world. His teaching are so so bad for arms Young arms

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