TWINS MINOR LEAGUE NOTES

Thursday, July 5^th

I am sitting here at 9:00 PM on the 4^th of July.  I am sipping on a glass of wine, watching the Tigers /Indians game, and listening to Tori Amos’s newest album, “American Doll Posse”.  The main thought going through my mind is, “How does Seth do this day in and day out?”  Seth, you truly are the man!  We all should take awhile to appreciate the work Seth and some of the other bloggers do for us. 

Have you voted for Pat Neshek as the final All Star yet?  It looks like he is in 3^rd place entering the final day of voting, so he needs our help to get in.  You can pretty easily vote 20 times in 5 minutes, so let me do some math…  If you take an hour of your day to vote for him, you could vote at least 240 times!

The Twins got a much needed win today behind Johan Santana’s strong pitching performance.  Jason Kubel and Seth’s favorite utility infielder, LUIS!, each hit timely homers.  Are we looking at the 2007 Cy Young award winner?  The voters seem so enamored with the win statistic, and Johan is now sitting at 10.  My Minnesota math says that is halfway to the magical number of 20.  I would say the odds are looking pretty good.  What are your thoughts?

This afternoon we have Kevin Slowey against Kei Igawa in the 4^th game of the Yankees’s series.  Hopefully we can get a split. 

Chris Coste was 2 for 4 yesterday to raise his average to .429.  He is now 6 for 14 on the year with 1 homer and 1 RBI.

Keep an eye on the bottom of the AL Central.  The Royals and their hot hitting rookie third baseman, Alex Gordon, have been within about 2 games of the White Sox for about 2 weeks now.  Right now the Royals are on pace to win about 69 games.  Good for them!!

Speaking of Chicago, how about those Cubs?  They are a game over .500 now, and they are only 5.5 games back of the Brewers in the weak NL Central.

Did you see that American dude eat 66 hot dogs yesterday?  That’s ummm… impressive?  That’s a mere 12,000 + calories on the day.

Anyhoo, let’s get into the minor league action from the 3^rd and 4^th!!  We had starts by Nick Blackburn, Jeff Manship, Anthony Swarzak, Alexander Smit, and Matt Fox.  There was a 1 hitter thrown by a starter, and it wasn’t by any of the aforementioned pitchers.  Let’s see how everyone did…

mini_tb Tuesday player of the day Matt Moses
mini_tb Tuesday co-pitchers of the day Nick Blackburn and Matt Fox

mini_tb Wednesday player of the day Greg Yersich
mini_tb Wednesday pitcher of the day Michael Allen

ROCHESTER REPORT

July 3rd: Rochester 10 @ Buffalo 3

The Red Wings cruised to the 10-3 victory behind 6 runs in the first 2 innings.  Tommy Watkins led off and had 3 hits in 5 at bats.  Ken Harvey hit a grand slam in the 7^th.  Denard Span had 2 hits in 4 trips to the plate.  He is still only at .244 for the year.  Luis Rivas went 0 for 4  for Buffalo.  The perhaps not so great Andy Marte was 1 for 4.

The big story in this game was another good start out of Nick Blackburn. He actually gave up a run!  He went 7 innings while allowing 5 hits and 3 walks.  He struck out 5.  His ERA jumped to 1.54.  Carmen Cali pitched a scoreless 8^th.  Bobby Korecky gave up 2 runs in the 9^th.

July 4^th: No game

NEW BRITAIN NEWS

July 3^rd: New Britain 8 @ Reading 2

Holy crap, Matt Moses is still alive!!!  He had 3 hits in 5 at bats on the day with a 3 run home run (2) in the first inning.  He is now hitting .327!!  Trevor Plouffe, David Winfree, and Rashad Eldridge all added a pair of hits.

Anthony Swarzak was the recipient of all the run support in this game.  He pitched fairly well, giving up 7 hits and 3 walks in 7 innings pitched.  He struck out 4.  His ERA is now sitting at 5.50.  Jose Mijares walked 4 in 2 innings and gave up a run.  He has now issued 24 free passes in 31.1 innings pitched.  I would have to say that’s not too good!

July 4^th: Portland 4 @ New Britain 2

The offense just wasn’t able to get going in this one.  They managed a meager 5 hits.  My main man, Trevor Plouffe had 2 hits in 3 at bats to raise his average to .289.  Luke Hughes had 1 hit in 4 at bats and drove in a run.  Kyle Geiger knocked out a home run. 

Jay Sawatski took the loss by giving up 4 runs in 4 innings on 4 hits, 2 walks, and 2 strikeouts.  Frank Mata pitched 3 shutout innings in relief.

FORT MYERS MEMOS

July 3^rd: Lakeland 4 @ Fort Myers 2

Edward Ovalle, Jeff Christy, and Toby Gardenhire all collected 2 hits.  The highest batting average amongst the 3 of them is Ovalle’s .218.  Ovandy Suero of the Flying Tigers stole his 54^th base.  Unfortunately, he’s 25 and hitting .291 with a .678 OPS in A ball, so he looks like a future pinch runner at best.

Jeff Manship took the loss in this game.  He gave up 5 hits and 4 walks in 5 innings while striking out 6.  Only 1 of the 3 runs he allowed was earned.

July 4^th: Fort Myers 4 @ Dunedin 9

The only player for the Miracle with more than 1 hit was Danny Valencia and his .234 average.  Johnny Woodard was 1 for 4 with his first Miracle home run.  He now has 3 hits in 28 at bats since moving up from Beloit. 

Alexander Smit had kind of a gross start.  He only went 3 innings.  He gave up 5 hits, walked 3, and he didn’t strike out anyone.  YUCK!  The relief pitching wasn’t all that much better.

BELOIT BITS

July 3^rd: Beloit 9 @ Burlington 3

Matt Fox is now 5-0 on the year.  He threw 6 shutout innings.  He gave up only 3 hits and 1 walk to go with his 3 strikeouts.  His ERA dropped to 0.92!!

Joe Benson had 2 hits in 5 at bats, including his 4^th homer and 10^th double.  Matt Betsill was 2 for 3 with 2 walks.  Chris Cates and Yancarlos Ortiz each had a pair of hits, a pair of RBI, and a walk.

July 4^th: No game

E-TOWN UPDATE

July 3^rd: Johnson City 3 @ E-Town 6

I’m not sure how E-Town managed to win this one.  The E-Town pitchers scattered 13 hits over 9 innings while pitching around 6, yes 6, errors!!!  Estarling De Los Santos made 4 of the errors himself!  Johnson City committed 2 errors of their own.  All I’ll say about this one is that there was a Henry Sanchez sighting.  He had 2 hits in 3 at bats, including his 2^nd double, plus a walk and on the day.

July 4^th: Johnson City 5 @ E-Town 6

This must have been an ugly game to watch.  There were 6 errors total.  Only 4 of the 11 runs scored were earned.  Estarling De Los Santos made both of the E-Town’s errors in this game.  6 errors in 2 games.  5 of the 6 errors were of the throwing variety.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s not good.  On the positive side, he only had 2 on the year prior to this 2 game stretch. 

Benjamin Petsch had 2 hits in 5 trips to the plate.  One of them was his second double.  Greg Yersich went 2 for 4 with his 4^th double and a walk.  The other 2 hits were collected by Rene Leveret and Mark Dolenc. 

Michael Allen had a nice start.  The 13^th round draft pick in the 2005 draft started his 4^th game and went 5 innings.  He allowed 4 runs.  However, only 1 of the runs was earned.  He gave up only 3 hits and 1 walk to go along with his 5 strikeouts.  Australia’s Brad Tippett notched the win with a scoreless 9^th in which he allowed a hit and a walk and also struck out a batter.  As Seth would say, reason # 854,943 why the win statistic can be meaningless.  Or was that reason # 854,944?

I would say both teams may be out on the field early for some fielding practice!

GCL TWINS UPDATE

July 3^rd: GCL Orioles 11 @ GCL Twins 0

The Orioles put up 7 runs in the 1^st in this one.  Sometimes it’s too bad there’s no 10 run rule.  Twins’ starter Thomas Wright didn’t even record an out in this game.  He pitched a 1 hitter though!!  He also walked 2 and hit another batter.  Rodney Gessmann and Danny Rondon each pitched a scoreless inning. 

Juan Richardson had 2 of the Twins’ 5 hits.  Wang-Wei Lin collected a double. 

July 4^th: No Game

That’s it for me today.  I’d have to say that was a very Seth-length entry!  I even tried to get a few more exclamation points in there!  I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4^th of July.