Ooh, "The Emausculator". Can we start using that? (Sorry, I'm just feeling a little left out after Jordan Bastian came up with the Yunel Bomber tonight on Twitter. Genius.) Anyway, Monday night's games featured some bottom-of-the-ninth drama, and the affiliates came out with a 3-3 night, though if you count the DSL things tip in our favour.
Tacoma 9 at Las Vegas 10
10 runs? That can mean but one thing: J.P. Arencibia hit ten home runs. Seriously though, when I see that Las Vegas scored 5+ runs these days, I pretty much assume JPA clonked one, and that assumption was correct tonight. His homer came in dramatic fashion, too: down 9-8 in the bottom of the ninth, Arencibia stepped up to the plate with one out and tied the game with one swing of the bat. Two singles and an intentional walk later, the bases were loaded, setting up Raul Chavez to be either the hero or the goat. He chose the former path, concussing a ground ball through the left side to score Brad Emaus for a walk-off 51s win.
Jesse Carlson was the only pitcher worth mentioning on the home side of things, pitching two shut-out innings with just one hit allowed. On offense, J.P. added a two-run double to bring his RBI total up to 69 for the year, Emaus singled, homered and walked (313/411/542 in 144 ABs in AAA FYI) and Aaron Mathews had a trio of singles.
Portland 11 at New Hampshire 2
Randy Boone struck out eight batters in four and a third innings! So there's that. Unfortunately, he also walked five guys and allowed three hits, which is not very good. Despite all this, he allowed only one run to score, but the man who relieved him, Adrian Martin, allowed all three inherited and one uninherited runner to score while recording exactly zero outs. Even though Vincent Bongiovanni would later have a pretty poor outing of his own, that fifth inning was basically the end of the game, as the offense was stifled by Portland's Kyle "Scott" Weiland, who stoned the Cats as if they were pilots crashing into a temple. Huh?
Travis Snider singled and doubled in five trips, while Adam Loewen hit his 24th and 25th two-baggers of the year while also taking a pitch on the body somewhere.
Jupiter 1 at Dunedin 6
LEEEEEEERRROOOOYYYYYY er I mean Chad Jenkins got the start and was great. He threw five innings of 1-whip ball (can we make that a new term?), striking out five and getting six ground balls to just three of the fly variety. Also, the one run that scored off Jenkins only made it around the bases because the runner stole second off Travis d'Arnaud before being singled home.
The offense put forth a balanced attack; six of nine starting position players reached base twice including d'Arnaud (walk, double) and Mark Sobolewski who did most (well, okay, half, which is the most production possible that can't be described as "most") of the damage with a single, homer and three ribbies.
Lansing 1 at Beloit 3
Even though I've been writing these MLUs for two and a half seasons now, I don't know where Beloit is; there are just too many minor league cities to know everything about all of them. I also don't know how to pronounce Beloit. I don't know why this popped into my head all of a sudden, but it's one of those things where my brain just made an assumption the first time I saw it, and now it's always bell-wah in my head, but suddenly I started thinking maybe that's not actually how people say it, since French names (if I'm even right about its origin) get anglicized all the time. Anyone know?
Anyway, now that you're completely bored, let's get on with the game recap. Kevin Nolan did his best for the 'Nuts, smacking two doubles and a single, but nobody else did much of anything on offense. The pitching was good but not great; Matt Fields allowed two runs in four innings, while Matt Wright and Steve Turnbull combined to allow another run in their four innings. It just wasn't enough.
State College 14 at Auburn 5
Yikes. Auburn got taken to... wait for it... State College! I'm sure Jesse Hernandez (1.2 IP, 8R (though only two earned)) doesn't want us to even mention the pitching. Oops, sorry Jesse Hernandez. On the other hand, Jesse's surname-and-first-initial brother, Juan Hernandez, wouldn't mind if we talked about his pitching performance.
The offense did score five runs, so the game wasn't a complete disaster, but if I do say so myself, they were a pretty empty five runs; the runs were scored entirely on singles and walks. Among interesting prospects, Carlos Perez was 1-2, Marcus Knecht 2-5 and Gustavo Pierre 1-4.
GCL Blue Jays 6 at GCL Tigers 5
This game looked like an easy win for the baby-baby Jays; they scored early and often, and carried a 6-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth. Then, Alex Pepe happened. The left-hander allowed two singles, a walk, a hit batter and a wild pitch while getting only one out. Pepe escaped from the game having only allowed a single run only to see the next pitcher, Brian Longpre, add three more earned runs to his (Pepe's) season line by allowing a grand slam to make it a one-run game. Fortunately, Longpre got the next batter to end the game and earn the Totally Undeserved Save.
Among the hitters, Jake Marisnick clobbered a pair of doubles and K.C. Hobson singled and homered. Rehabbing Shawn Hill got the start and put up a 666 (innings, hits, strikeouts) with a walk thrown in.
DSL Blue Jays 3 at DSL Rangers 0
Alex Ramirez had a great start, going seven innings, striking out five, and allowing only three base-runners. On the season, the 20-year-old has allowed 32 base-runners in 30.2 innings while striking out 23 and sporting a 1.91 GB:FB ratio.
Three Stars!
3. Chad Jenkins - 5 IP, 5, 0BB, 5K
2. Shawn Hill - add one to everything in Jenkins' line above
1. J.P. Arencibia, Brad Emaus, Mark Sobolewski - these guys get to share the #1 star since they had basically indistinguishable days: a homer, another hit of some sort, 3 RBIs.
Links
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20100719232437895