Minor League Highlights for Friday, June 6
Las Vegas 4, Tacoma 1. RHP Rafael Soriano (6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K) continued his run of dominant pitching performances, but wound up with a no decision as RHP Allan Simpson (2/3 IP, 3 H, 3 E R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K) gave up three runs in the 7th. 2B Mickey Lopez and C Julio Mosquera each had a pair of Tacoma’s six hits, including a double for Lopez.
San Antonio 6, Arkansas 4. RHP Clint Nageotte (5 2/3 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K) ran his record to 7-1 on the season, as the Missions clinched the first half title in the Texas League’s Western Division. The offensive star was 1B A.J. Zapp, who hit a pair of homers including a 1st inning blast which left the stadium entirely and was estimated to have gone over 450 feet. Zapp drove in four of the team’s six runs, and C Scott Maynard drove in the other two with a bloop single in the 7th. RHP Jared Hoerman (1 2/3 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K) picked up his 17th save.
Lancaster 5, Inland Empire 2. The 66ers were done in by a five-run 4th inning, in which only one of Lancaster’s runs was earned thanks to a costly error. RHP Juan Done, still trying to work his way back since coming off the DL, took the loss (3 2/3 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K). CF Shin-soo Choo, playing the position since Sheldon Fulse was traded, had a double, a triple and a walk in three at-bats, and 3B Hunter Brown added a pair of hits. RHP Brian Strelitz (4 1/3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K) turend in an admirable performance in relief of Done.
Wisconsin 1, Fort Wayne 1. Heavy rains ended this game after six innings, and though it won’t count in the standings, individual players statistics will. RHP T.A. Fulmer (6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K) had yet another good start, lowering his ERA to 2.91 on the year. 3B Matt Hagen provided all of Wisconsin’s offense with a homer in the bottom of the 6th, tying the game just before the rains came.
Ty Wigginton takes over the Bret Boone Memorial Golden Expletive for his f-bomb in the bottom of the 8th. Carl Everett will present the award to Wigginton between games today.
Before anyone declares Freddy right in the head and back to dominating form, we should consider that today Garcia faced a lineup that was not particularly good (holy mackeral, I just noticed they’re right next to Oakland in park-adjusted hitting… boy, that OBP+power thing’s not working out so well, huh) and that didn’t play their best hitter, Mike Piazza, and pulled their second-best hitter, Cliff Floyd, halfway through. In addition, players don’t like double-headers, and the Mets, starting in the 5th, might as well have sent random fans up to take thier hacks in an attempt to get the game over with.
5th: one pitch gets to the catcher.
6th: no pitches get to the catcher
7th: 2 strikes, 5 balls get to the catcher out of 16 pitches
8th: 2 strikes, 3 balls get to the catcher out of 13 pitches
9th: 2 strikes, 2 balls get to the catcher out of 9 pitches
Average batter sees maybe 3, 3.5 pitches/AB. These guys would have run that down to -1 if they could figure out how. Anyone on the staff could have pitched “beautifully” or “masterfully” when you’re facing a bunch of guys bound and determined to make their long day at the ballpark a little shorter. And while I’m at it, I’m so tired of this constant showering of platitudes on pitchers. Scrape out a 4-3 win, ‘scattering’ 10 hits and a couple of walks? Well, that’s a “dominating performance”. I know what domination looks like, it’s Mike Mussina’s start against the M’s this year where he made one of the league’s best offenses look like they belonged in a beer softball league. There are wonderful, jaw-dropping performances in baseball, and what words will our announcing crew have left to describe them?
“Well, Jamie Moyer has no-hit the Boston Red Sox, walking only one batter, and Red, I gotta say, Moyer has been so-so today.”
“Absolutely, Rick. Moyer had great control and kept the Red Sox hitters off-balance all night long. This was one of the most medicore performances I’ve ever seen, and I am so happy to have been here in Boston to see this average, unimpressive perfomances.”
(Guy at home: “Huh, I’ve never heard them call something so-so, or medicore before. Those words must mean “superfantabulous” or something.”)
While I’m ranting, Ron Fairly doing play by play is like having a dentist drill into a healthy tooth. Am I really supposed to believe that there’s no one available who’d be willing to do a little spot play by play to help out the crew and prevent this all-too frequent disaster?
For all of you who’ve been experiencing hand shakes and other withdrawal symptoms because we haven’t posted so much, sorry. Blogger’s been really slow and crappy lately, and we’ve had problems logging in, posting… pretty much everything we’re paying them to do, they haven’t been doing it. So bear with us, it’ll improve or… well, I’m lazy and don’t want to actually set up anything on the ussmariner.com site, so it’ll improve or it won’t. (shrug)