And you know, that headline made me think, is the kid Weaver, as brilliant as he is, tired yet of being the second guy to do something? (I mean, quick, Box No-Prize to whoever first names, without looking it up, the second man on the moon after Neil Armstrong.)  To wit:

Sometimes you win from your own efforts, sometimes it's given to you.  Sometimes you could have won but lost, and sometimes you just blow it.  And that was the night on the farm.  New Hamsphire were the only winners through a combination of their efforts and Reading doing their best to lose the game.  Las Vegas had lots of opportunities to score but came up short.  And Dunedin were heading for a win but blew the game in the eighth inning.

Yohan Pino was the standout, throwing 93 pitches to get through his eight innings.  Aaron Laffey and Randy Boone pitched well too.

I was in Lansing last week to see four Lugnut games. Lansing is drawing a lot of fan and scout attention this year because of their young group of starting pitchers and the teams performance on the field has more than lived up to expectations.  This scouting report summarises what I saw in my four days in Lansing.

Remember this is the end of the first month of the season for the players, many of whom are playing in full-season ball for the first time. There is a lot of teaching going on. While I was in Lansing, in addition to the regular team coaches, these other "teachers" were in town: Pat Hentgen, roving pitching instructor; Mike Mordecai, infield instructor; Rick Miller, outfield instructor; and Steve Springer, quality at-bat instructor. The manager/coaches room was like grand central station.

Las Vegas won the Battle of Nevada and Mother Nature won out in Lansing. The other two affiliates wound up on the wrong side on the scoreboard thanks to come from ahead losses, one of them in extra innings.

The farm club put in some great pitching and OK hitting and came up winning for the evening.  Jessie Chavez took his third win for Las Vegas with a brilliant outing and what we could call a “parsimonious” pitching performance.  Hats off to the pitching staffs at all levels Friday, allowing only 8 runs in two games while striking out a total of 31.

Pitchers get a lot of recognition in these reports, pitching and defense are half of the game.  On Tuesday Chad Jenkins and Asher Wojciechowski pitched well to lead their teams to victory.  Aaron Sanchez pitched well, Justin Nicolino was OK, but the bullpen lost the Lugnuts game in the ninth.  The Las Vegas pitching staff had pitched well during their road trip but once they came back to the sin city, their ERA's have balloooned.  Scott Richmond was yesterdays victim.

Offensively, Jake Marisnick and Mike McDade hit their first home runs of the season.  Anthony Gose and AJ Jimenez had two run triples as part of a two hit day.  Jon Talley stayed hot with three more hits.