Louisville 4 Buffalo 1
As mentioned off the top Jim Negrych mustered all the Buffalo offense on the day in the first as he hit a leadoff, first pitch homerun. Anthony Gose had two hits, as did Ryan Goins, but besides that the Buffalo offense did not muster much support for starter Claudio Vargas. Vargas went six innings, allowing four earned runs. In other news, Billy Hamilton only stole one base for the visiting Bats.
New Hampshire 1 Trenton 2
Deck McGuire got the start tonight and was solid, pitching six innings of two run ball. He took the loss though, and the two runs he did give up were in the fifth inning on back-to-back doubles. One thing I’ve noticed about McGuire, even when he’s going good he’s always prone to that big inning. I think it’s just a function of not having a legitimate plus or put-away pitch. You can’t go to it when in a tough situation. I would think the Jays have learned from the McGuire and Jenkins drafts that drafting a guy number one without any legit plus offerings is probably not too wise. Kevin Pillar, of course, tripled to show us he can do basically anything. In all seriousness, Pillar’s success has been a coup for the Jays and a real bright spot as there really hasn’t been too many prospects tearing it up this year and it would be nice to have someone/something to cling to after watching the shenanigans going on in Toronto at the moment.
Brevard County 2 Dunedin 8
Aaron Sanchez started and Aaron Sanchez pitched well. While he was lifted in the fourth, ostensibly because his pitch count must have been high, he put in work those three-plus innings, tallying six strikeouts. Sanchez is striking out a few more batters recently, so I wonder if he’s now throwing more breaking balls. He did yield two runs, one of which was earned, and was pulled after he gave up his only walk on the night. Some other notes to pass along in this one; Jeremy Jeffress pitched two clean innings of relief, which I hope were a product of improved mechanics and command. Count me as someone who believes Dane Johnson will do wonders with him. A.J. Jimenez also made his season debut going 1-4. Jimenez, I imagine will be promoted to New Hampshire soon enough. One hopes that he puts together a solid year as he had shown real promise two seasons ago. K.C. Hobson provided most of the offense with two homeruns. Hopefully tonight’s showing will start his season, as he has been poor so far. Not to be forgotten, Jon Berti is on a fourteen game hitting streak, which continued tonight. His fourteen gamer is the longest so far this season in the Florida State League. So, in all, good vibes coming from Dunedin tonight.
Wisconsin 3 Lansing 5
Lansing split their doubleheader with the Brewers affiliate. They won this here first game on the back of a solid Daniel Norris performance. Norris had his troubles in the second inning, giving up three singles, a double, and a couple stolen bases. When the dust settled Norris had given up three runs, two of which were earned as Jorge Flores had kicked a ball around to allow a run to score. Norris came back the next three innings and put up zeros giving his team a chance to win. While I have my own reservations about Norris going back to his draft year. Namely, I didn’t buy the delivery for velocity long-term or long-term command, and still have my doubts. He is battling this year in Lansing and from what’s been reported he seems to be working out the kinks—albeit slowly. Norris is an athletic guy so there is real hope here. Norris too is an interesting guy and would be a cool guy to one day have on the big club. Norris is devoutly religious, but also owns a Volkswagen Type 2, skateboards around Lansing, and despite growing up in Tennessee, likes surfing and wearing shirts and hats that say “Aloha.” To me Norris sounds like a walking contradiction, but who am I to judge? He is polite and thankful on his various social media, which counts for something when you see some of the player feeds out there.
One would hope that last night’s shellacking of Michigan State would galvanize a few lumber swingers to start hitting the ball with some frequency and for one game at least it seems to have. Dwight Smith Jr. and Kellen Sweeney went back-to-back tonight in the sixth. Smith also walked twice and seems to have impressed Lansing play-by-play man Jesse Goldberg-Strassler for his overall approach. In fairness, it’s pretty easy to impress the guy, but we’ll give Smith his due and he seems to have, for at least one night, played to his draft billing as one of the more advanced hitters high school hitters from two year’s ago. Some other notes from this one; the Lugnuts walked eight times as a team to five strikeouts. There might be a few Outback Steakhouse gift certificates from tonight’s game.
Wisconsin 9 Lansing 3
Lansing couldn’t follow up their early win with another later on. They were beaten almost from the first pitch as two consecutive singles to second basemen Christian Lopes led off the game, and later in the inning a throwing error on a pop-out to Lopes scored one of the four runs in the inning. Lopes, however, acquitted himself quite well at the plate and was perhaps the lone bright spot with the bat for Lugnuts on the backend of today’s doubleheader. Lopes had two hits and two RBI’s, and is now hitting .326. He’s not hitting for much power, nor is he walking much, but he’s hitting the ball, which is saying a lot more than most of these bonus baby high school kids we’ve drafted these past few years.
Ben White started and didn’t have much success. In fact, none of the four pitchers pitched particularly well. OK, that’s not fair, Chuck Ghysels pitched a clean inning, but by that time the visiting Rattlers had built a commanding six run lead. On to the next one.
Three Stars
3. Daniel Norris
2. Deck McGuire
1. K.C. Hobson
