I know you can't scout the stat line, and I know that Vlad Guerrero Jr. is the better rated prospect, but Bo Bichette is putting together a great season. On Wednesday Lansing scored four runs, Bichette drove in three of them and scored the fourth. He reached base all four times he came to bat. There are some concerns regarding his swing but you have to admire the way he is playing. Between Vlad Jr., Anthony Alford, Bo Bichette and some of the pitchers, you could have quite the discussions at the end of this year as to who is the number one and number two prospect in the system.
There was lots of hitting on the farm Wednesday. The Jays four teams racked up 45 hits. Unfortunately their opponents also had 45. The Jays came out on the short end at 1-3.
Buffalo
Jarrod Saltalamacchia is back and played DH on Wednesday. Salty had two hits, one of the bloop variety and struck out three times. Salty used to be a decent hitter, a period of a couple of months in the minors might sort out his swing. Jason Leblebijian had two more doubles, and two strikeouts, and made a sparkling play at third. "Leb" had an outstanding April with a 1027 OPS. He has slowed in May but still has an 837 OPS and his strikeout rate is not high. If he does the same in June he would be looking for a major league call-up. Roemon Fields picked up two more hits to keep his average at 400 and Dwight Smith also had a couple of hits and is hitting .297. Despite all that hitting the Bisons lost. Four of their runs came in the last inning off Dustin Antolin and Joe Nathan.
TJ House walked six in five innings and gave up four runs. John Stilson and Wil Browning also failed to keep a clean sheet.
New Hampshire
Like Buffalo, New Hampshire were hitting, 13 hits in the game. Anthony Alford led the way with four hits, Ryan McBroom had three, a single, double and a home run. Richard Urena had two including his second home run of the season, hit to centre field. Danny Jansen had one hit in three at-bats, a double, and was hit by a pitch.
On first look Conner Greene did not have a good start, he gave up five runs in five innings. Trenton had six hits off Greene but only two were hard hit balls. Four of the hits were ground balls and two of those were infield hits. Greene had eight ground ball outs to three fly balls, sometimes the ground balls go through. For better news on Greene check out the scouting report in the link at the bottom of this article.
Dunedin
All nine hitters had a hit, the Jays had 13. Max Pentecost pushed his average back over .300 with two hits. He played DH on Wednesday. After Pentecost, the next best averages belong to Andrew Guillotte and Cavan Biggio each had a lone hit. Lane Thomas got off to a good start but has been struggling in May, his OPS is 485 for the month.
TJ Zeuch went seven innings but was hit around for 11 hits. However, Like Greene, four were ground balls and three were soft fly balls. I don't think he was hit hard, just hit to the right places. Zeuch did get eight ground ball outs and six K's.Tom Robson pitched a clean inning. Robson had a couple of rough outings in April but has had a string of much better appearances recently. He could be settling in to his bullpen role.
Lansing
Jackson McClelland has pitched well this season but he took the loss on Wednesday. The Lugnuts took a one run lead to the ninth but McClelland walked the lead off hitter and had two on with no outs. With one out Yeltsin Gudino booted a ground ball allowing the tying run to score. A couple of more hits left McClelland with the loss and three runs allowed. Justin Maese had a two sided start. Through three innings he had given up three runs on six hits. Then he retired 11 in a row and did not concede any more runs.
Bo Bichette had an excellent game. He walked and scored in the first inning. He doubled in two runs in the fifth. He walked in the fifth and singled to drive in the go-ahead run in the seventh. He was 2-2 with two walks and played a part in every run scored by Lansing. Edward Olivares had two more hits, one a double. Vlad Jr had the day off.
3 Stars
3rd star: Ryan McBroom
2nd star: Anthony Alford
1st star: Bo Bichette
You can find scouting reports on Conner Greene, Sean Reid-Foley, Francisco Rios and Tim Mayza here.
