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7/24/09

Minors Stuff




The Herd:


Nelson Figueroa's streak of quality starts has reached nine, but his run of six consecutive winning decisions was halted Thursday night as the Buffalo Bisons fell, 3-1, to the Louisville Bats at Louisville Slugger Field.

Figueroa (6-5) was the tough-luck loser, going seven innings and allowing nine hits, but limiting the damage to just three earned runs. His ERA increased to 2.42, still second best in the International League.

The Bats, who took three of four in the series and went 5-3 against the Herd this season, ended Figueroa's run of 15 straight scoreless innings when Eric Eymann doubled home Kevin Barker in the bottom of the second. The game was scoreless for the next 3 1/2 innings until the home half of the sixth.

B-Mets:

Friday, July 24 at Erie 7:05 pm RHP Eric Brown (4-11, 5.98) vs. RHP Thad Weber (3-2, 3.57)

Saturday, July 25 at Erie 7:05 pm RHP Jake Ruckle (1-1, 4.64) vs. RHP Luis Marte (5-8, 3.92)

Sunday, July 26 at Erie 1:05 pm RHP Dylan Owen (3-6, 5.55) vs. LHP Jon Kibler (6-5, 3.71)

Monday, July 27 at Altoona 7:05 pm LHP Eric Niesen (1-5, 7.36) vs. RHP Michael Crotta (4-6, 5.12)


The Binghamton Mets capped a long, emotional homestand with a come-from-behind victory on Thursday night.

Ike Davis scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch with two out in the eighth inning to lift the B-Mets to a 6-5 Eastern League victory over the Connecticut Defenders at NYSEG Stadium.
The B-Mets (38-59) won three of four against the first-place Defenders (55-43). It's the first series the B-Mets have won since May 14-17, when they took three of four from Trenton. The B-Mets had lost or split their last 18 series, losing 12 and splitting six.
Gnats:
A double play turned by Josh Satin and Wilmer Flores helped turn the tide in the ninth inning as the Sand Gnats hung on for a, 7-6, win over the West Virginia Power in front of 6,175 fans at Appalachian Power Park. Savannah has now won five games in a row, which ties a season-long streak set April 16-20, and will start play on Friday half a game out of first place in the Southern Division.

Austin McClune singled and stole second to start the ninth inning off closer Rhiner Cruz and represented the tying run. Bobby Spain hit Cruz’s 3-2 pitch on a line to the right side where it was snared by Satin for the first out of the play. Satin then immediately turned and fired a strike to Flores at second to double-off McClune and put two outs on the scoreboard in the final inning.

Danny Bomback popped out to Imbewer Alvarez to end the game and secure Cruz’s 19th save of the season.

Savannah (16-11, 51-46) once again benefited from Power errors as they plated three runs in the second to open up a three-run lead. Joey August reached on a fielding error by first baseman Kyle Morgan to prolong the second inning. On the very next play, left fielder Quincy Latimore dropped a fly ball that would have also been the third out. The miscues led to two unearned runs for starter Gabriel Alvarado (5-8).

The Power made one more error in the game that also cost them a run. In the two-game series West Virginia has committed 10 errors in 18.0 innings of baseball.

Phillips Orta (1-0) picks up the win in relief of Eric Beaulac after a tough fourth inning. The 22-year-old Beaulac allowed four runs on four hits in the inning before leaving the game. After Orta walked the first man he faced to load the bases, he got the next three outs to preserve the lead. He allowed one runs in 2.2 innings of work.


K-Port:
Pulaski stopper Eric Valdez promptly extinguished it.

Valdez struck out two as he retired the side in the top of the ninth and the Pulaski Mariners wrapped up a 9-7 Appalachian League win at Calfee Park Thursday night.

Pulaski completed a three-game sweep of the K-Mets (10-18), who return home tonight to begin a seven-game homestand with a three-game set against West Division leader Elizabethton.
Darrell Ceciliani went 4-for-5 with an RBI for Kingsport while Richard Lucas went 2-for-4. Jeff Flagg added a two-run homer.

Pulaski’s Dwight Britton went 4-for-5 with a two-run blast of his own while Jharmidy De Jesus went 3-for-4 with an RBI and catcher Steve Baron went 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI.
Trailing 7-3, the K-Mets came alive in the seventh when shortstop Gered Mochizuki’s bases-loaded double scored Ceciliani, Lucas and Flagg

Sloppiness: Again, I expected to see a bigger gap here between the DSL and other rookie leagues. After all, many of the players in stateside complex leagues have gotten three years of drilling with top college coaches. Yet the number of fielding errors (at least those that resulted in ROEs) is not overwhelmingly high. The one marked difference is in wild pitches; there are 70 percent more wild pitches and passed balls in the DSL than in the Pioneer League.One possible explanation springs to explain the credible DSL defense, as indicated by ROE rate and BABIP. In discussing minor league defense, much is often made of field conditions. We've all seen comically bad hops on lower-level infields; in Wisconsin this year, one of those hops broke Brett Lawrie's nose. Perhaps, because the academies are run by the major league clubs themselves, the average DSL field is better kept than those in, say, the Appalachian League.

Queens:

Here is the question that Omar Minaya needed to be asked: This incident with Bernazard allegedly challenging the Double-A team to a fight, if you knew about it soon after it occurred a few weeks ago why did you not begin an investigation then? If you didn't know about it, what kind of organization are you running that this information did not flow to the GM and owners, but rather to reporters first? Either way this speaks horribly of the Mets. They either knew and did nothing to address this unprofessional, egregious behavior, or they didn't know, which means their front office is filled with see-no-evil buffoons.


While you can bet the farm that Zobrist will keep the bat on his shoulders with a 3-0 count, likewise you can bank on Abreu and Wright to do the same. Both players have been at the plate with a 3-0 count 32 times and both have kept their bat on their shoulder for the fourth pitch of their at-bat every single time. Abreu, like Zobrist, is stingy with his swings. This year, he’s offering at just 34 percent of all pitches, which is the second lowest rate in the game. (Luis Castillo leads baseball at 31 percent.)
The Nationals are now 16 games behind the Mets for fourth place. The Mets are known for losing leads and with their injuries, unless some of those injured players come back, that 16 game lead may not be large enough to hold down the Nationals.

After all, changes have been made to the game of baseball for decades. Rob (Neyer) points out the advent of the infield fly rule and the evolution of the base on balls. In the BBTF thread, Tango mentions the changes in strike-zone enforcement and the make-up of the ball and mitt. If these rules and essential pieces of equipment can evolve and change, then why can’t the intentional walk rule?

It’s a good point, and one that I’m happy to concede. But it’s still not enough to convince me. As Rob points out, most of these changes (the rules changes, at least) were made long ago, when the game was still growing and learning. Of course changes would be made then: it’s impossible to anticipate every weakness a game might have, so changing the rules to accomodate them as they were discovered is only sensible. By now, 140 years after the game was invented, these weaknesses have been ironed out. The strike zone and pitching-count rules have had decades to prove their worth (though the strike zone’s exact boundaries have proven to be a little too susceptible to the whims of the umpires and the commissioner’s office), as have all the other esoteric rules of the game. They are where they should be.

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