Any time Butt Beat, Butt Kicked & Butt Whipped is used in coaches quotes, it is not a good sign. So went the weekend.
Trickle down effect of the Gutierrez call up means:
Josh Miller moves from CC to RR
Ryan McKeller moves from Salem to CC
Greeneville only played one game this weekend. They won Friday night 8-5 to sweep the Bristol White Sox. They have now won 6 out of their last 8. They had Saturday & Sunday off. They have 10 games left to win one more game. Why one more game? The current record for worst record in the Appy League belongs to the 1986 Kingsport Mets who went 16-52. Friday’s win was Greeneville’s 16th. One more win takes them out of obtaining a tie for the worst season record. A 17 year old Curtis Pride hit .109 for Kingsport in 86. He was one of 4 players (and the most recognizable) who got to the majors off that ineffective team.
The win for Greeneville was the only win for the organizations teams on Friday night.
Weekends start on Friday and end Sunday Night. Games don’t normally follow that pattern but Tri Cities did. Their Friday night game was suspended with Tri Cities ahead 5-4. It was resumed Sunday night and finished with the Oneonta winning 8-7. Brandon Barnes hit his 7th homer as a part of a 3 hit night. Colin Delome also had 3 hits. Jason Dominguez pitched two scoreless innings of relief. In his last 10 appearances, he has only giving up 3 hits, 6 walks and 2 earned runs over 18 innings while striking out 15.
Saturday night, the ValleyCats could do no right in a 14-1 loss:
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The lopsided score has become all too familiar for the sometimes defenseless ValleyCats (17-35), who committed four errors, three wild pitches and a passed ball. Pitcher Robert Leonhardt even managed to put a runner on base by bringing his hand to his mouth illegally for an automatic ball-four call.
Sunday night, they won a 6-5 7 inning game. Dominguez added another 2/3 of an inning of hitless ball for his 8th save. Phillip Stringer is making the most of his chance to play in Tri Cities. He had a 2 out, 2 RBI triple in Sunday’s game. He is now 3 for 9 in his first 3 games.
Lexington lost Friday & Saturday to insure that they will not finish above .500 this year. The Lex Paper had a “silver lining” article:
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Bennett says the Legends have “a handful of guys” with big-time potential. He named Jordan Parraz, Nick Moresi, Koby Clemens, Max Sapp, Bud Norris and recently promoted Polin Trinidad.
Sunday the futility continued as Lexington lost 6-1. They are 5-11 for the month of August and have lost 5 of 6.
Salem’s bats were held to two hits on Friday night to lose 2-0. Saturday, they rebounded with a 5-4 win thanks to another effective outing by Jeff Wigdahl. Sunday, they put together a 9-6 victory taking advantage of 3 Winston-Salem Warthog errors. Sergio Perez lasted only 3 innings giving up 4 runs.
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“We need our starters to throw better,” said Avalanche manager Jim Pankovits. “It was encouraging to see [Casey] Hudspeth throw so well [Saturday] night, but it was a little discouraging to see Sergio. I thought he’d gotten over the hump there, but from the start, he didn’t look comfortable.”
The local paper had a nice piece on Virginia native Billy Wagner and his plans to retire in two years.
Corpus Christi’s bullpen gave up 10 runs in a 12-3 loss on Friday:
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“When you take a lead into the eighth inning, you feel good about your chances to win the ballgame,” Clark said. “But when one swing of the bat produces four runs, it’s hard to battle back.
“But if I’m going to get my butt beat, beat me by nine runs. Those one-run games hurt even more because you go back and think about all those things you could’ve done. We had our chances — we had a lead (after four innings) and we didn’t add on to it. You want to try to take as much pressure off the bullpen off possible — we’ve got to do a better job.”
Saturday, the bullpen made atonement for their blow up with 6 innings of shut out relief work in a 3-2 13 inning win. Josh Flores flashed the leather pulling a home run ball from over the fence in the 12th.
Sunday, looked like a softball score. Springfield took out the Hooks 17-10. James Goethals got his first hit in AA with a homer in the 9th. Brad James got lit up for 7 earned runs in 3 innings of work.
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“You’ve got to sit there and take it like a man,” said Clark, who eschewed a fire-and-brimstone postgame tirade for an Irish wake-like demeanor. “What else can you do? Hey, it was a butt-whipping. You deal with it and get ready to go again.
“We swung the bats well and hit the ball good. That’s all I can say about it.”
Round Rock lost all 3 games this weekend. Friday, they lost 7-8. Backe gave up 3 home runs and 7 earned runs in 4 1/3 innings. Ransom hit two home runs to bring his total to 28 on the season. Saturday, they welcomed Hunter Pence back to Round Rock but the outcome was another loss. Sunday, Pence when hitless and Patton got hit hard in a 12-5 loss. Patton gave up 6 runs in 5 innings. This was his first loss at home since his promotion to RR.
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“They’ve kicked our butts the last couple of nights,” Express manager Jackie Moore said of Nashville.