Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a
meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. “We have lost the first of
the ebb,” said the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was
barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to
the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast
sky–seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.
The Riverbandits were rained out, surprisingly enough that was a problem for them to play baseball. I always knew evolution just didn’t sound right!
Memphis 3, Las Vegas 4 (11 innings)
- Brendan Ryan showed rust going 0-for-5 with 2 Ks in his rehab assignment.
- Jon Jay made his voice heard in the OF mix, going 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs.
- Allen Craig heeded my cry for his promotion by going 3-for-5 and driving in a run (playing 1B).
- Donovan Solano was 2-for-5, while Mark Shorey was 2-for-4.
- Adam Ottavino pitched 6 scoreless innings, giving up 5 hits and walking 3. He had 4 strikeouts.
- Royce Ring gave the team a scoreless inning of relief. Not to be out done, Josh Kinney pitched 2 scoreless frames with a hit and 2 Ks.
- Jess Todd came in and kept the game scoreless in the whaaaaaaa? The Destroyer set the team up for certain defeat giving up 3 runs in the 10th on 2 hits (1 HR). He struck out 2 and walked 1.
- But our fearless heroes fought back and Fernando Salas came in to give them a chance to win in whaaaaaaaaaa? Salas struck out 1 batter but gave up a solo HR to another, the deciding factor in the game.
Springfield 9, Are we seriously playing this provincially challenged team again from Arkansas 8
- DJ Tools was 2-for-5 with a triple and 2 runs scored. Eat your heart out Jay Bruce.
- Tony Cruz was 3-for-5 with a double and 3 RBIs.
- Pete Kozma hit a triple, going 1-for-5 with 2 RBIs.
- Steven Hill giveth (1-for-4 with 2 R-HR) and Steven Hill taketh away (2 fielding errors).
- A lot of offense, so quick hits: Andrew Brown 3-for-5, Mark Hamilton 2-for-5, James Rapoport 2-for-4 with an RBI and Daniel Descalso 2-for-4 with a 2B and an RBI.
- Trey Hearne pitched 5 innings, giving up 6 hits and 4 ERs. He walked 2, struckout 3 and was tagged for a dinger.
- Marco Gonzalez threw up zero for his frame.
- Tyler Norrick sucked, managing to give up 4 runs on 5 hits in just 1.1 innings of work. He struckout 2 and walked 1.
Kyle Mura gave up a hit in 0.2 innings of relief. That hit drove in 1 of Norrick’s runs. - Francisco Samuel picked up the save, walking and striking out 1.
- Colt Sedbrook came on as a pinch runner and stayed in the game for an at-bat, driving in a run.
- Old Wooden Shoes Curt Smith played LF today and continued to stroke the baseball anytime I do a DFR. Smith was 3-for-5 with a run scored.
- Francisco Rivera (triple) and Paul Vasquez (double) were both 1-for-4.
- Brian Broderick gave up the bulk of the runs, 6 of them in 4.2 innings of work. He efficiently did it on 6 hits. He walked 3, struck out 4 and gave up a HR.
- Chuckie Fick finished the inning for him and then pitched his own (1.1). He gave up 2 hits and struck out 1.
- Blake King also gave up 2 hits in an inning of work, striking out 1.
- Matter of Fact, Thomas Eager also gave up 2 hits and struck out 1. Unfortunately, he also gave up 2 ERs and walked 3 batters in 1 inning.
- Eduardo Sanchez finished the night off in binary fashion: 1 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 1 HR.
Not too shabby of a night for some of the regulars on here. As happy as I can be about the organization’s talent levels, I can’t be all that amused that Nick Stavinoha is somehow a great option to help the team with its outfield triage. Don’t they know that the wounded are more prone to contraction Stavinfections?
Entries (RSS)
Something you didn’t mention: Daryl Jones was caught stealing twice, in which one was recorded as a putout from Blake Johnson.
Looking at the options they have at Triple AAA Nick was the only Right handed bat option with Mather having issues with his wrist. I think if Nick is given a chance at some regular at bats it may help. Remember he hit in the 260′s at AAA the year before he hit .337.
Also of note, I have not saw the three games yet that Evan MacLane has pitched in but the stat line look pretty good.
Team League W L ERA G GS CG SHO SV IP H R ER HR BB SO GO/AO AVG
MEM PCL 2 0 1.25 3 3 0 0 0 21. 2 17 3 3 1 1 17 1.35 .218
As much as I like Craig and Mr. Freese. If they can’t hit more than thier hitting right now at AAA. I can’t see how they could help much either. But I do agree Craig has a future in the bigs.
Stav was also already on the 40 man so to me it was between him and freese and they chose Stav. Hopefully Craig gets a chance but I don’t see it coming before the ASB if it comes this year.
Is it time to take Descalso seriously? That .350 average, plus all those extra base hits & decent plate discipline…and he’s slightly younger than Brett Wallace…and an up-the-middle defender. If he keeps it going for another month, I’d like to see him get a shot at AAA.
The kids been good but I don’t know if I can ever take him seriously with that gameday picture.
It’s nice to see a sweet swinging MIF’er for once in the system.
Descalso? I am not sure a month of AA makes a player but it is a good start. I personally would like to see his walk rate increase a little, but hell if he keeps hitting the ball like this pitchers are going to start to work around him abit.
Descalso is making this minor league season kinda fun for me. Coming into the year I thought we kinda had a good handle on everyone: Kozma = above average player; Wallace = Good bat, sorta OK Glove; DJ Tools = Ricky-lite; Ott = erratic pitcher; Todd/Mortensen = major league pitchers (relief/starter?); Garcia = injured; Niko = potential. Descalso has kinda just put it all together and gave me a little faith in the development process. Again, I think it is nice to see our prospects hit Double-A and blossom–Pop Warner and Derrick May deserve some credit. Pop might be second in line (Oquendo) to replacement for Tony at some point.
Not sure how craig’s glove would fit into a team that already kind of sucks defensively. then again idk anything about stav’s glove either. It might be part of their thinking though.
It’s nice that you rip on Ottavino when he does bad, but when he does well, you just try to slide it right on in so no one notices.
I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings by not praising him in a DFR I tried to write quickly before falling asleep after running laps around my town naked following the Pens depantsing of the Caps.
“You must kill Kurtz. Terminate with extreme prejudice.”
Nice to see Mark Hamilton quietly putting together a respectable season. Wasn’t sure if he’d ever put things together, here’s hoping he has.
@ cardslhpfan : maybe that is because people expect first round pitchers to have good outings?
Also, during his last outing this is what Az had to say “Adam Ottavino took the loss allowing 4 runs over 6 innings. He’s got an ERA over 7.00 and he’s walking too many batters (4 today). Simply put, it’s not good enough. This is the same kind of outing we saw at Springfield that made us think his prospects to have a real big league career were dodgy. We want the WBC Ott back, please.” How is that ripping him? It is pointing out the obvious, he was bad.
@ Hugo : What is your experience with baseball? Just curious on what makes you an expert on knowing whether or not he performed well just by looking at a stat line.
That’s the end of that conversation. We’re not going to engage in that BS line of rationale that knowledge is the exclusive domain of players or some experience level litmus test. Too many players and coaches have shown themselves ignorant of very fundamental principles for that to hold water any more.
Ottavino had a good game. It was a game that finished @ 11pm HL’s timezone. I’d still like to see some truly dominant performances from him (even sporadically) but last night was a step in the right direction.
Solano looks like he is not completely overwhelmed in AAA…i figured he may not hit at all
He’s hitting a bit like a 21 year old in AAA, he’s had 0 walks and 9 strikeouts in 11 games (35 at bats).
He’s got pretty much 0 power, so his optimal is pretty much what he did in AA this year – 8% walks and 15% Ks.
I think he’s doing good so far considering his age.
HL–I don’t think anything anyone says on here “hurts feelings” for any of the players. I think they all can put into perspective that what is written on here has no impact on them or their careers.
AZ– I didn’t not realize that HL is from China. The Memphis game started at 12:00pm Eastern. So if it finished at 11pm in HL’s timezone it was either the longest game in the history of baseball or he is in China ;)
I just don’t understand why it is said that Tyler Norrick “sucked” but Jess Todd did not get that same honor. And if we go by Hugo’s logic, Norrick was a 6th round pick so it was a decent game for him, he is not supposed to have really good outings.
Tyler Norrick faced 10 batters. It went like this.
Bunt out
Single
HBP
Single
Single
Strikeout
Fly Out
Single
Walk
Strikeout
Single
For a reliever, that’s a terrible outing.
Todd’s outing wasn’t good either. But since Todd has been lights out, it came as more of a shock.
This month, Norrick’s been giving up almost a run an inning. His strikeout rate is down, his walk rate is up and he’s not getting groundballs anymore.
I thought to myself that there was no way it would be a day game. That’s what I get for making assumptions.
Semantics much? Todd “set the team up for certain defeat” by giving up 3 runs in 1 inning, Norrick “Sucked” giving up 4 runs in 1.1 innings. I don’t see how Todd didn’t get the same treatment. And what does it matter if they do get special treatment? People can have pet prospects, just read on.
As for my “logic” I was just trying to point out that 1st rounders are expected to be good if not great. Anything beyond that doesn’t have the same expectations. I don’t expect horrid outings from 30th rounders but I don’t expect to get an Albert Pujols each time either.
As per my experience, it is probably about as much as most “fans” of the game. I played little league and I watch as much as I can on TV, I read stats, read commentary and I know well enough to come to this site over others for good analysis from people that know more than I do. But it doesn’t take any of that for a person to know that 4 runs and 4 walks in 6 innings is not what you want from a starter, it may be “enough” but it is often not “good enough” and can easily be considered bad.
Hugo, I’m suspending your account.
When I approved it, I thought you had a much more thorough baseball background. I don’t think I can continue to allow you to espouse on a sport you clearly don’t have enough knowledge on to speak to on authority.
Good day sir!
I said GOOD DAY!
Ottavino didn’t give up 4 runs in 6 innings last night. He had a good game and he deserved credit for it (which he since has been).
Sure, they could have said “Ottavino had an decent outing with 6 scoreless innings” but he also gave up 5 hits and 3 walks for a WHIP of 1.33, not very good. So where do you draw the line? I think just putting out a stat line like that is simple enough sometimes and keeps you from having to point out both the good and the bad for people that should be able to find it themselves.
silly boys
I’m not going to use any adjectives in my DFRs.
Good for Ottavino, but his pitching is still quite smelly and he is a bust of a first round pick. He needs to be dominant, not passable.
And that is why they do not pay you to choose who is drafted
I would like to see where you are getting your information of Norrick giving up 1 run per inning. He had one bad game and a bad game it was. For the most part, he has done well this season with making a transition to reliever.
http://firstinning.com/players/Tyler-Norrick-a has a game log.
For the month of may:
May 1: 1IP 1ER
May 4: 1IP 0ER
May 6: 2IP 1ER
May 8: 1.2IP 1ER
May10: 2IP 0ER
May 13: 1.1IP 4ER
9IP 7ER total, or about .77 runs per inning and 7.00ERA (easy to calculate given that he has 9 total innings)
Not quite 1 per but close.
I’m just saying, it’s easy to judge other people for what they do when none of us can do it ourselves.
We all pay good money to support them and I write on specific dollar bills that this one pays for 200 harsh words against Ottavino, 300 harsh words against Brad Furnish, etc.
Seriously, this is the last comment that I’m letting stand on the topic of whether we should or shouldn’t critique player’s outings. I know some people get huffy because they think we’re wrong and that’s fine but make it about the substance (i.e. Ottavino actually had a really nice breaking ball last night but there were some seeing eye singles) rather than the fact that there is perceived criticism.
I’m tired of wading through whiny comments about semantics.
You’re just trying to stir up trouble. If we aren’t going to judge these players on the thing that they are paid to do, then that would make baseball discussion on the Internet moot.
Pretty soon it’s going to get to the point where people don’t want you to put the stats in the DFRs … I’d rather not read DFRs that say “Ottavino pitched last night. Todd pitched last night. Craig played 1B.”
Now, let’s get back to the fun, witty comments that everyone loves.
I don’t know why everyone’s so quick to disparage semantics. Some of us consider problems of semantics to be the most interesting questions facing modern linguistic theorists. Let’s see how much improvement you see in search engine technology without more solid semantic technology.
I feel like this is baiting. . .do I owe a charity 5 dollars?
I’m not saying the stats shouldn’t be mentioned, however, you can not tell if they really did terrible or not just by looking at a stat line.
Man, this site is lame. If people can’t convey the whole game experience in 40 or fewer words, really, what is the point?
Luckily, I found this super cool site where you can get all the game information and not miss a single detail.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/tickets/page.jsp?sid=t235&ymd=20051130&content_id=35238&vkey=tickets_t235&fext=.jsp
This has been highly entertaining but is it really that big a deal if someone makes their opinion known about a prospect sucking?
I think not.
Not to mention they provide this service to us for free and do not get paid.
Blogs often contain comments and opinions.
Not baiting… More like mock protestation. I wasn’t really following the argument that closely, but my specialization is in semantics.
OK — that’s what I thought. I’ve perused some of your papers previously, which is what led me to think that.
The…horror…..the…horror…
Um, thanks for doing DFRs? Given that this site was going away there for a while, I think folks should pause before they start criticizing inanely. That is all.