Team Results
76-53, 1st–PCL American South, 9 games ahead of Oklahoma.
RR went 5-2 during the week which included a 4-game sweep of the Iowa Cubs. The Express have now reduced their magic number for locking up a division title to seven. Round Rock is a slam dunk to clinch in the upcoming homestand when they face Albuquerque and Memphis. RR trails only Tucson (78-49) for best record in the PCL.
Maximum Overdrive
INF Joe McEwing. Going through a stretch rarely seen in his career, the 33-year old McEwing is 9-21 over the last five games with three longballs, three doubles and seven RBIs. All three of the dingers, two of the doubles and six of the RBIs came in back to back games this week against the I-Cubs. With this latest HR spurt, Super Joe now has hit a career-high 10 longballs this year which is three more than his previous four seasons combined. He’s batting .377 (40-106) over his last 25 games.
RHP Ezequiel Astacio. Struggling most of the season, Zeke put up back to back gems during the week with his performance on Sunday versus Memphis (7 IP 2 H 0 R 0 ER 2 W 6 K) slightly better than the one versus Iowa on Tuesday (6 IP 3 H 1 R 1 ER 3 W 8 K).
C/1B J.R. House. Says sayonara to AAA by hitting at a .333 pace (6-18) during the week with a homer and six RBIs. Had 26 RBIs in 23 games played for Round Rock and at the time of his departure for the bigs led all Astros’ minor leaguers with 95 RBIs on the season.
One game behind the plate in a three and a half week period and you’re good to go? Sure…now if I can only find that damn catcher’s mitt. After 22 games previously at 1B or DH, House started and made his first appearance behind the plate for the Express in the contest on Sunday versus Memphis. The Redbirds aren’t much of a running club and had few opportunities (just six baserunners in the game) but were successful in their only SB attempt.
INF Jesse Garcia. The former Baltimore/Atlanta/San Diego infielder has a .371 BA (23-62) over his last 17 games.
OF Brian Gordon. The 28-year old Round Rock native in his 10th minor league season is batting .348 (23-66) over his last 19 games.
Stuck in Neutral
UTIL Eric Bruntlett. Batting just .212 (11-52) in the 16 games since being sent down, though he is 4-9 in his last three ballgames.
Broke Down/Under Repair
1B Royce Huffman. On DL with the hand injury and is scheduled to return on Aug. 27.
Among the PCL Leaders
- 2B Brooks Conrad is 1st in extra-base hits (68), 1st in triples (15), 1st in doubles (37), 10th in RBIs (76) and 2nd in runs scored (86).
- INF Cody Ransom is tied for 7th with 20 home runs.
- OF Charlton Jimerson is 9th in extra-base hits (49), tied for 8th in triples (6), and 6th in SBs (28).
- RHP Chris Sampson is 2nd in ERA (2.65), 1st in WHIP (1.00) and tied for 2nd in wins (12).
- RHP Travis Driskill (14) is tied for 5th in saves and RHP Roberto Giron (12) is tied for 9th.
- RHP Jared Gothreaux has given up the 7th-most gopher balls (19).
Miscellany
- The Express had three players picked off in Monday’s game versus Oklahoma. R.A. Dickey had one of the pickoffs but two were by RedHawk catcher Miguel Ojeda. One of the RR baserunners nabbed by Ojeda was C Hector Gimenez. A measure of revenge for Gimenez was in knowing that earlier in the game he had picked off Ojeda.
- After a scoreless six innings in his AAA debut, RHP Matt Albers was less impressive in his second outing though the results against Iowa weren’t bad (7 IP 9 H 3 R 3 ER 2 W 8 K).
- Opposing Albers in that game last Wednesday night was Wade Miller, making his 7th minor league rehab start but first for the Iowa Cubs. Despite a FB that pretty much sat all night at 85-86, the former Astro kept the Express lineup mostly in check with one exception: McEwing. He blasted a solo shot, a double and a 2-run yack to account for all three of the runs given up by Miller in his six innings of work.
- Ryan O’Malley, the Cubs’ pitcher who blanked the Astros over eight innings in last Wedesday’s matinee game, hadn’t been much of a mystery this season to Express hitters. In three games pitching for Iowa versus the Express, the 26-year old southpaw (originally a NDFA and never really considered a prospect) had been shellacked for 10 runs on 17 hits in just 7.2 IP.
- The home run hit by Jimerson on Tuesday was his first in 134 at-bats (since June 27). CJ then followed up with two more longballs later in the week.
- 8 and counting: Jimerson whiffed eight times during the week and is now at 176 strikeouts on the year as he nears the PCL single season K record of 184.
- Gotten some conflicting information on this, but Jimerson missed some games recently due to a suspension. It was imposed by the Astros for a violation of team rules and of course no one’s talking specifics.
- RR hurlers are second in the PCL with a collective 3.79 ERA and have thrown a league-leading 12 shutouts.
Team Results
30-27, 3rd (2nd half)–Texas League South, 2.5 games behind Midland. (71-55, Overall)
CC had a 4-3 week which included going 3-1 against 2006 nemesis Tulsa. The Hooks play their next four games at home before finishing the season with nine games on the road. Such a difficult schedule makes capturing a second half title (to match the one they claimed in the first half) a pretty unlikely proposition. By contrast, current division leader Midland plays their last nine games at home (including four games versus Corpus).
Maximum Overdrive
RHP Chance Douglass. He’s actually been up and down over the last month or so, but the start last Monday was pretty spectacular. He tossed a two-hitter at the Tulsa Drillers, retiring the side in order in eight of the nine frames. The two base knocks came in the 5th, and the Amarillo boy then went on to mow down the final thirteen batters. The outing was impressive from several vantage points, not the least of which Tulsa was a club with a 9-1 record (entering the game) against CC this season. The Colorado affiliate is one of the best-hitting teams in the Texas League, ranking 2nd in both batting average and runs scored and 1st in home runs, and is loaded with Rockies’ prospects (Ian Stewart, Troy Tulowitzki, Seth Smith, Joe Koshansky, Joe Gaetti, Matt Miller). The blanking was just the 3rd time this season the Drillers have been shutout and it was just the second time they’ve had a CG tossed at them. It’s the second shutout this season for Douglass, who back on June 28 tossed a 5-hitter at Springfield.
3B Mark Saccomanno. The 26-year old Baylor-ex has six longballs and 16 RBIs over his last 19 games. A big chunk of that came this past week over a span of three games in which the 4th-year pro went deep three times and drove in 11 runs. The former Klein Forest HSer is repeating the Texas League and has 15 longballs in 245 ABs this season compared to just 12 home runs in 514 at-bats last season for CC. Unfortunately, the increased power has also been accompanied by a big drop in BA (.226 vs. .278) and a higher strikeout rate.
OF Josh Anderson. Batting .370 (44-119) over his last 26 games with 18 runs scored. Like Saccomanno another repeater from last year’s CC squad and while he has significantly improved the batting average from ’05 (.321 vs. .282), Josh remains a flop at drawing walks. He’s drawn just one free pass over his last nine games and has just 24 BBs on the year. His walk rate last season was abysmal (29 BBs in 127 games) and this season’s is even slightly worse than that.
C Brian Peterson. The guy with just 36 games of AAA experience despite seven years in the minors is batting .333 (15-45) in the 14 games since being signed after his release by the Tigers’ organization. Currently on a seven game hitting streak in which he’s batting .448 (13-29).
Stuck in Neutral
LHP Carlos Hernandez. Nothing expected and certainly nothing delivered with 11 runs being surrendered on 11 hits and 10 walks in his first 8.2 innings of work for the Hooks.
Broke Down/Under Repair
Nobody.
Among the Texas League Leaders
- 2B Jonny Ash (.325) is tied for 3rd in batting average while Anderson (.321) is 5th.
- OF Hunter Pence is 3rd in homers (28), tied for 3rd in RBIs (93), 3rd in slugging (.562), 4th in OPS (.927) and 2nd in triples (
. - INF Josh Bonifay is tied for 7th in longballs with 16.
- Ash is tied for 10th in triples with 4.
- Pence (88) and Anderson (82) are 3rd and 5th, respectively, in runs scored.
- Anderson leads in steals (39) but has also been thrown out the most times (13).
- Douglass is 1st in WHIP (1.22), 4th in ERA (3.42) and leads the league with two shutouts.
- RHP Josh Miller is 7th in ERA (3.91), tied for 9th in WHIP (1.34) and 9th in strikeouts (98).
- RHP Paul Estrada is 2nd in the TL with 127 strikeouts while RHP Juan Gutierrez (100) is tied for 7th.
- Estrada is 4th with 15 saves.
Miscellany
- Despite leading the TL with a .281 team batting average, the Hooks are next to last in runs scored. Blame it perhaps on the low walk totals (next to last in the league).
- CC leads the league with a 3.88 team ERA and have also thrown the most shutouts with nine.
- The second start for Gutierrez since coming off the DL went smoothly on Thursday with three scoreless innings and just one base hit allowed. He threw 34 pitches and showed no ill effects from the fatigued arm as his FB was reportedly hitting 95.
- Despite going just 4-19 on the week, Pence managed to drive in eight runs over the seven games.
- SS Wade Robinson hit his first longball of the year and just his 4th extra-base hit in 208 ABs this season at three different levels (CC, RR and Salem).
Team Results
36-20, 1st (2nd Half)–Carolina League Southern, 4 games ahead of Kinston. (68-58, Overall)
A terrific 6-1 week for the Avalanche which included winning three of four on the road to up their record in games away from Salem Memorial Stadium in the season’s second half to 21-5. The Avs are also currently on a six game winning streak. The club plays a not particularly difficult schedule the rest of the way as it tries to capture the second half crown in the CL Southern. All remaining 14 games are against clubs with losing records.
Maximum Overdrive
OF Beau Torbert. Has hits in 11 of his last 12 games, batting .465 (20-43) over that stretch with 12 runs driven in.
1B/3B/DH Neil Sellers. Having gotten hot at the same time as Torbert, Sellers is batting .417 (20-48) over his last 11 games. Even more on fire this past week with a .484 BA (15-31) while belting out six two-baggers in seven games.
RHP Jimmy Barthmaier. His two starts during the week (7 IP 4 H 1 R 1 ER 2 W 7 K on Tuesday and 7 IP 3 H 0 R 0 ER 1 W 6 K on Sunday) were unquestionably his best back to back performances of the season. The 22-year old has picked up W’s in each of his last five starts and has a 1.45 ERA over that span. Actually, the 40-man roster member has been pitching really well since mid-July and has 1.84 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in his last eight starts.
LHP Jeff Wigdahl. 5.2 IP of scoreless/hitless work during the week including an impressive 4-inning stint on Saturday (his longest outing of the year). Now has an 0.65 ERA over his last 27.2 frames despite the not as impressive 1.34 WHIP during that span.
Stuck in Neutral
C Lou Santangelo. Reverting to the mean after that well above average July, Santangelo is just 2-25 over the past week with eight strikeouts.
RHP Rodrigo Escobar. The ex-closer has an 11.03 ERA and 2.45 WHIP over his last 19 appearances (23.2 IP).
Broke Down/Under Repair
RHP Robert Stiehl. On DL with a broken left fibula and out the remainder of the season.
Among the Carolina League Leaders
- Torbert is 3rd in batting average at .312, tied for 8th with 28 two-baggers and 8th with 62 runs scored.
- OF Francisco Caraballo is 2nd in doubles (35), 1st in extra-base hits (51), tied for 8th in slugging (.442) and 10th in RBIs (59).
- Sellers is 1st in doubles with 36.
- Santangelo is 2nd in homers with 18, tied for 6th in triples with 5, 2nd in slugging at .484, and 9th in OPS at .792.
- INF Drew Sutton is tied for 7th in longballs (14), 9th in OBP (.364) and 8th in OPS (.797).
- Caraballo (108), Santangelo (106) and OF Ervin Alcantara (96) remain in the top ten in strikeouts.
- Barthmaier is 10th in ERA (3.89), 1st in strikeouts (123), and tied for 2nd in wins (10) but also leads the league in walks (65).
- RHP Felipe Paulino has the 4th-most free passes (55).
- Escobar remains 3rd in saves (17).
Miscellany
- Besides the two superb starts from Barthmaier, Salem also received excellent starts during the week from RHP Rory Shortell (Wednesday), Paulino (Thursday) and RHP Tip Fairchild (Friday). Paulino’s was perhaps the best, going seven scoreless with just four baserunners allowed and seven whiffs.
- Not exactly surprising to see this going on in a place that takes away a lot of deep flies, but the Avalanche belted out eight doubles but no home runs in the game Saturday night at Salem Memorial Stadium. Visiting Winston-Salem contributed a pair of two-baggers but no longballs. The first two games of the series with the Warthogs saw a total of 13 doubles and zero homers between the two clubs.
- Avalanche pitchers are atop the league with 10 shutouts while ranking 3rd with a 3.48 ERA.
Quoting
A N.L. scout after seeing Felipe Paulino in his latest start on Thursday (the part about his mechanics echoes previous comments about Paulino):
“The thing that impressed me most was his breaking ball–it had much more life than when I’d seen him before. But he used all three of his pitches pretty good–right now, I just can’t get over how much his breaking ball has improved. Everybody knows he’s got a plus fastball, but tonight his breaking ball was plus-plus.”
“He throws so hard, it’s very easy for him to come undone out of that package. Mechanically, his balance was good (Thursday) and he was coming at you downhill. But he’s very high maintenance within his delivery and if the slightest thing is off, he flies open and the command goes away. That’s why you see so many walks, and why he’s hit hard at times–he winds up leaving balls up in the zone and hitters either lay off or take advantage.”
“But he was concentrated in this particular outing–you just worry about the consistency and the fringe-average changeup. But if he can stay consistent in his mechanics, we’re talking about somebody who could dominate the later innings down the road.”
Team Results
23-33, 6th (2nd half)–SAL Northern, 15 games behind Lakewood. (67-58, Overall)
With the anemic offense that Lexington has in the season’s second half, about the only way the club wins is when they get outstanding starting pitching. The Legends got four such efforts during the week, each translating to a win as they go 4-3.
Maximum Overdrive
RHP Brad James. If there’s some outstanding starting pitching going on, you can be sure James will be in the mix and he was with two plus performances during the week. His best effort was on Sunday with seven scoreless versus Lake County. Now has an 0.84 ERA and 1.07 WHIP over his last 13 games (75 IP).
LHP Chris Blazek. Sailing along with an 0.35 ERA and 1.09 WHIP over his last 12 games (25.2 IP).
LHP Ryan Owens. Signed by the Astros this summer when he went undrafted after his senior season at The Citadel, the southpaw is currently working on a string of nine innings without giving up a run. Has a 1.69 ERA on the year despite issuing waaaaaay too many walks (21 in 32 IP).
Stuck in Neutral
RHP Ryan McKeller. The Nolan Ryan Elite Camp invitee has been rocked in his last two starts with 10 runs allowed on 13 hits and 7 walks in just 7 innings.
OF Mitch Einertson. The glub…glub…glub sound you hear is Einertson’s flash in the pan career going down the drain. MItch is batting just .167 (44-263) over his last 76 games and an even worse .132 (9-68) over his last 20 games. Despite it being a repeat season for Einertson in the South Atlantic League, his BA on the year has fallen to .211 as compared to the .234 average he put up in ’05 for Lexington.
1B Mark Ori. Batting .220 (39-177) with just six extra-base hits over his last 47 games. The double he hit in on Sunday was his first extra-base hit in 23 games and of course he hasn’t homered since June 18.
Broke Down/Under Repair
RHP Levi Romero. On DL and out for season with triceps tendinitis.
RHP Brandon Stricklen. On DL and out for season with partially torn labrum.
Among the SAL Leaders
- OF Eli Iorg is 3rd with 81 RBIs, tied for 7th with 15 HRs and is 8th with 35 SBs.
- RHP Garrett Murdy is 7th with a 3.05 ERA.
Miscellany
- C Jose Lopez has 10 errors (including three in two games this week) and 8 PBs in 33 games.
- Iorg has an outside shot at breaking the club RBI record of 96.
- C J.R. Towles was back in the lineup and behind the plate on Sunday after missing 16 straight games. Missing so much time was a result of a virus and giving the previously-injured right knee further time to heal up.
- James had 15 groundouts versus just three flyouts in Sunday’s outing, not an atypical game for the sinkerballer (he had sixteen GBs and just 3 FOs in a start a couple of weeks ago).
Team Results
35-23, 1st–NYP Stedler, 3.5 games ahead of Oneonta.
The all-star game-abbreviated week saw the ValleyCats go 4-1. Tri-City plays half of its remaining 18 games at home while second place Oneonta has just eight games at home over its final 19 contests.
Maximum Overdrive
LHP Chris Salamida. Make it eight straight wins for the 22-year old southpaw after tossing five shutout innings on Sunday, lowering his ERA and WHIP on the season to 0.82 and 0.96 respectively.
LHP Victor Garate. Hasn’t allowed a run over his last 18.1 innings of work. Over his last 21.2 IP, he’s yielded just six hits and has a 37:10 strikeout to walk ratio.
RHP Bryan Hallberg. Has a 1.59 ERA and 0.97 WHIP over his last four starts.
OF Jordan Parraz. Batting .371 (26-70) over his last 20 games. Although he did get nabbed to snap his consecutive SB streak at 12, his three swipes during the week puts Parraz at 19 out of 22 on the season.
Stuck in Neutral
Nobody we’d care to discuss.
Among the NY-P Leaders
- Parraz is 2nd in batting average (.337), 1st in OBP (.432), 1st in slugging (.508), 1st in OPS, tied for 5th in home runs (5), tied for 7th in doubles (14), tied for 1st in SBs, and tied for 4th in runs scored (33).
- INF Eric Taylor is tied with Parraz for 7th in doubles and is tied for 9th in runs scored (29).
- ERA: Salamida and LHP David Qualben (2.01) are 1st and 5th, respectively.
- WHIP: Salamida ranks 8th while Qualben (0.99) ranks 10th.
- Strikeouts: Garate is 6th with 56.
- Wins: Salamida is tied for the league-lead.
- Walks: LHP Cory Lapinski has issued the most (27).
- Saves: Garate is tied for 8th with 8.
Miscellany
- Although ranking 6th in the 14-team NY-Penn League with a 3.23 ERA, TRC hurlers are second in shutouts with six.
- Two more pickoffs increases the V-Cat hurlers’ season total to 34 in 58 games (30 by LHPs).
- Mostly hitless and hapless: SS Tim Torres has just two hits in his last 30 at-bats while OF Nick Moresi (3rd-rounder) has just four hits in his last 33 ABs.
- 3B Chris Johnson, the 4th-round pick who had been expected to provide some power, finally picked up his 1st professional homer in Monday’s game. It came after nearly 165 at-bats.
- 1B/OF Jimmy Van Ostrand, an 8th-round pick who like Johnson is expected to be a power/RBI bat, has only one dinger and just three stinkin’ RBIs after 103 at-bats.
- Salamida gave up a run in his one inning of work in the NY-Penn All-Star game on Wednesday while Parraz, C Max Sapp, 1B Eric Taylor, and 2B Greg Buchanan were all hitless in their plate appearances.
Team Results
27-31, 4th–Appy West, 10.5 games behind Elizabethton.
The G-Astros go 4-3 on the week and are 11-9 over the last three weeks. Greeneville would have to go 7-2 over its remaining nine games to finish above .500 for the season, almost insurmountable when factoring in that all the games are against teams with winning records and six of ’em are on the road.
Maximum Overdrive
LHP Sergio Severino. Has an incredible 45:6 strikeout to walk ratio in his last four starts (22.2 IP) while surrendering a total of just two runs on 13 hits.
OF Steve Brown. The Venezuela native is batting .450 (9-20) over his last six games to raise his average on the year to .314. 2006 is his U.S. debut after a couple of seasons in the VSL where he batted .298/.368/.418 in 2005 after a .281/.375/.417 season the year before. While it’s great to see his BA at the current level, the number of walks (only six in 45 games) and extra-base hits (just five) don’t exactly give you the warm and fuzzies. But at just 19-years old Brown has a few more years to mature physically and otherwise to develop those skills.
Stuck in Neutral
SS Timmy Johnson. Actually had a couple of hits during the week and now has four hits in his last four games. That compares to the three hits in the 20 games prior to this offensive “surge”. But while his batting average approaches the heady heights of .115, the 19-year old remains Mr. Flubber in the field. With three errors in his latest three games, the former 7th-rounder has 18 miscues in 24 ballgames. He had 21 errors in 43 games for Greeneville last season.
C Ralphie Henriquez. Ending his sophomore season on a major down note, Henriquez is batting just .172 (16-93) over his last 25 games (which includes an even worse 2-24 over his last seven games) and has seen his BA fall to one of its lowest points on the season at .218. Not too great for a kid repeating the league at the lowest rung of professional baseball.
Among the Appy Leaders
- INF Ronald Ramirez is 8th in batting average (.316) and 1st in doubles (18).
- Brown is 9th in batting average.
- 3B Brandon Caipen is 4th in SBs with 13 and tied for 10th with 33 runs scored.
- INF Reinaldo Ramirez is 1st in triples (5).
- 1B Cirilo Cruz (65), Henriquez (51) and OF Allen Langdon (45) are all in the top ten in whiffing.
- LHP Polin Trinidad is 2nd in ERA (1.96) and WHIP (0.84) and tied for 6th in strikeouts (54).
- Severino is 9th in ERA (3.20), tied for 8th in WHIP (1.21), 1st in strikeouts (76) and has issued the 8th-most walks (22).
Miscellany
- Greeneville hurlers remain top dogs in the Appy with a 3.32 ERA.