“And as I stood there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter– tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . . And one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Today we find ourselves one day closer to the start of the season, one day closer to evacuating Florida and scattering these little hatchlings across the Midwest (well, most of them)
St. Louis 5, New York (N) 9
* Shane Robinson sure makes it hard not to like him. Raising his stature, he hit a 9th inning HR off of Frankie Carlos Muniz.
* Ian Ostlund, I’m sure confounding the Moonman every time he had to mention his name, came in for relief of Adam Wainwright in the 6th inning. With a man at first, Ian gave up a single and a fly out before succumbing to a run scoring double by Mr. Excitement. He then retired Luis Castillo (not really retired, although he could use it) to get out of the inning.
Memphis 3, NOLA 2
* Brad Thompson, pitching for a spot as a rarely used reliever in St. Louis, went 2 inning giving up 1 hit, 1 ER and 1 BB, while striking out 1. Puppies world-wide rejoice!
* Jess Todd, be still my beating heart, went 4 marvelous innings giving up 3 hits and walk. He was tagged for an earned run but struck out 8.
* Katsuhiko Maekawa struck out 2 in his inning of work. For those that don’t know Maekawa is a lefty reliever that is most notably known for his hit-and-run car accident and alcoholism. With the organizations track record, I hope he has all of that behind him.
* Boy, it must have been a good day to go watch Memphis play. The notable names we’ve all grown to know and love were involved in today’s DFR. Fernando Salas was next on the hit parade, throwing 1 inning, giving up a walk and striking out a batter.
* Justin “Knails” Knoedler was the big hero today. In the 9th inning, Knails stepped to the plate and smacked a 2-out, 2-strike, 2-run game-winning double down the LF line. He went 3 for 4 and gunned down a basestealer.
* Amaury Cazana, international man of mystery, was 2-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI. He also unveiled his plan to balance the $3 trillion dollar federal budget by literally picking the entire country up by its collective bootstraps. Don’t doubt he can’t do it.
* Shane Robinson, pulling double duty, doubled….natura-diddly.
* Bryan Anderson and Nick Stavinoha, both caught in St. Louis Organizational limbo, singled and walked.
Springfield 5, Binghamton 9
* Brad Furnish had a tough 3.2 inning outing, with 5 hits, 4 Runs (3 ER) while getting 2K’s.
* Tyler Herron used his defense in his 2.1 innings, yielding only 3 hits.
* With Herron using up all the defense, Elvis Hernandez’s 1 inning pitched saw 2 unearned runs on 2 hits. Taking matters into his own hands, he struck out 2.
* Two First Names Francisco Samuel was both good (3 K’s) and bad (3 ER) in his 1.1 IP.
* Coo Coo Ca Choo was 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI.
* Tyler Henley and Brandon Buckman were both 2-for-4.
* Similarly, James Rapoport and Daniel Descalso copied off each others work, racking up a single and walk a piece.
Palm Beach 4, St. Lucie 4, Terrorists 1
* Cause when baseball ends in ties, the terrorists win. Fighting the good fight, Brian Broderick was perfect in 4 innings, striking out 5.
* With the impossible job of following that, JD Stambaugh managed 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K in 2 IP.
* Blake King was NOT good giving up 3 of the 4 runs on the day in just 0.2 innings. They got 3 hits and a free pass off him while he struck out 1. Not literally WHILE he was striking out 1, mind you.
* Adam Reifer burned for 1 inning, giving up 1 hit and 1 pass. DARE.
* Paul Vasquez was 2-for-2 with 2 RBIs.
* Tommy Pham was two phor phour speeding around phor two triples.
* Curt Smith is on a tear this week, ending up 2-for-4 with a double today.
* Shane Peterson also tripled.
Quad Cities (#1) 4, Savannah 5
* Deryk (TJ) Hooker rounded up 4 ER on 5 hits, 2 BBs and 2 K’s. He booked 2.2 IP
* Ramon Delgado was perfect in his 2.1 IP with a strikeout.
* David Carpenter, 1 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 K
* Niko “The world’s greatest pitcher poses no more threat to me than does its greatest termite” Vasquez settled for 2 hits and then honorably took a free pass as the pitcher surrendered in his 3rd plate appearance.
* The rest of the hits on the day went as follows: Jose Garcia hit a double, John Cawley hit a 2 run single, Paul Cruz and Ryde Rodriguez also singled.
Quad Cities (#2) 13, Gildea’s Raiders 5
* Josh Hester, in honor of playing Rita Hayworth’s favorite team, went 2 innings with 2 H, 1 unearned run and 1 K.
* Jose Rada was both wild and dominate, striking out 4 of the 8 batters he faced but also walking 2 of them in 2 innings. He gave up an unearned run.
* Jason Buursma was hit with 3 (2 ER) of the Raider’s runs. He struck out 3 and gave up 2 hits.
* Travis Mitchell had himself a day, going 4-for-4 with a walk, a run scored and two RBIs.
* Oliver Marmol was in the thick of things with 3 runs scored, 2 RBIs while going 2-for-4.
* Roberto DeLaCruz was 2-for-5 with an RBI.
* Ivan Castro wrapped one tightly and smoked an RBI double in his only AB.
* “My Name’s Buck (Brian) and I like to ….hit a double”
* Michael Swinson (“Man, I was WAAY off”) singled and walked twice.
* Edgar Lara and Beau Riportella each had RBI singles.
Again, thanks to John Vuch for all the great information. While not trying to crush the dreams of these boys but man, will I be glad when when I can get on a last name basis with some of these guys. Every day there seems to be a new name I don’t recognize, making me feel that much dumber.
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“Every day there seems to be a new name I don’t recognize, making me feel that much dumber.”
So you’re saying, stretching out your arms to the crystalline, radiant sky, that you know yourself, but that is all—
“Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.”
Jess Todd will still destroy us all.
Loving the Dumb and Dumber reference too. Michael Swinson is now Michael Samsonite.
Roberto DeLaCruz seems to be doing really well. It seems like he is getting two hits a day. For someone who might have been targeted for the DSL, if he can jump all the way to Quad Cities that would be really impressive.
he has been targeted for johnson city all along, and since he is playing for the quad cities b team, i think that is still the plan.
Wowzer. HL’s DFRs are a soup of meta-culture. (Incidentally, reading over the last few DFRs, it seems someone’s a Watchmen fan.)
Man, I hope Todd can keep it up. That line looks awfully tasty.
Mildy related: Given Ottavino’s line the other day, do any of the pantheon of FR writers know if his stuff is good enough to be a true frontline starter? Not to get too optimistic here, but I’m wondering if (dependent on him getting regular results like this) he’s got the pitches to be a number 1-3. Or do people peg him as a potential 4 or 5?
I’m just another American who saw too many movies as a child. Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he’s John Wayne, Rambo, Marshal Dillon.
Seriously though, something has to be done with all this useless pop culture knowledge I’ve been accumulating for decades.
Heckuva Great Post HL ,
De La Cruz is gonna rake in Johnson City , that will be fun following his season.
Jess Todd is becoming quite an interesting pitcher, man if he can keep it up thru 09,
you are not exaggerating HL re: stillness of your heart.
Tommy Pham = triples machine.
The alliteration on Pham was pretty damn phunny. How come I never thought of that?
See, now that’s what I’m talking about. In fact, I couldn’t stop crying over this, I’ve just never seen so many beautiful stat lines before…
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That’s a really good question about Ottavino, and one with two answers. Ott absolutely has enough raw stuff to pitch at the front of a rotation in terms of quality. He has plenty of fastball, both in velocity and movement, and his slider is a quality out pitch when he commands it. What he doesn’t really have is quantity and consistency. By quantity, I mean that he is basically a two pitch pitcher at this point, as both his changeup and curveball have failed to develop very much. He also lacks consistency, both with his mechanics and his command. (Although technically, you could probably consider those the same thing.)
So bottom line, Ottavino probably has a better chance at being a frontling starter than many other pitchers in the system, due to the fact that the stuff he does have is of exceptional quality. However, without a third pitch and better command of said stuff, he looks more like a closer in training than a future ace. I wish someone would try to teach the kid a splitter or something. (Seems like I say that about a lot of pitchers in the Cards’ system, doesn’t it?)
And man, I’m really kicking myself for not copyrighting Jess Todd Will Destroy Us All. Just dumb on my part.