Down on the farm on draft day, the teams went 1-4.
Round Rock
The Express booted the ball around in the 8th inning to give up 2 unearned runs. They ended up losing 4-3. Runelvys Hernandez continued his solid pitching giving up one run in 6 innings. He has made 8 straight quality starts and has given up more than one run in only two of those starts.
The Express traded catchers with Houston with Q going up and JR going down.
Corpus Christi
Chris Johnson homered twice and drove in 4 runs to lead the offense. The defense cost the Hooks the game as they gave up 4 unearned runs in the 9th thanks to 4 errors. Sammy Gervacio blew his second consecutive save as the Hooks lost 9-6.
“I’m embarrassed with how we played in the last inning,” manager Luis Pujols said. “Four errors in one (expletive) inning? I’m embarrassed.
“We missed two chances to turn two double plays to (win) the game and we failed to execute. I’m embarrassed to see that kind of baseball at the Double-A level.”
Salem
The Avs got the lone win of the night as they split a double header with the Fredrick Keys. In game one, Jhon Florentino’s hitting streak was snapped. Jordan Parraz continued his good work at the plate with a single, a double and a walk out of the lead off position. The Avs won game one 3-1
In game two, Salem was shut out 5-0. Sergio Severino struggled with is control giving up 4 runs on only 2 hits but 4 walks in 3 1/3 innings pitched.
Lexington
Thomas Vessella has his roughest outing since being called up from Extended Spring. He gave up 5 runs in 5 innings. The Legends let an opportunity slide by in the 8th. They had runners at first and second and no one out. Max Sapp grounded into a force play that retired the runner going to 3rd. Then Steve Brown struck out. He apparently took exception to some calls by the home plate umpire because he was ejected. He was joined in his early exit by Cat Everett, who wasn’t even in the game at the time. Russell Dixon grounded out for the final out.
Draft
Day 1 of the draft is in the books. Some “experts” are really questioning some of the Astros picks. I always assume people who make these decisions have more information than I do. Here is an example of some of the information that the Astros had that others may not have had on Supplemental round pick Jordan Lyle.
“We had an idea he’d go second or third round, but he went higher than that,” (Univ. South Carolina recruiting coordinator Monte) Lee said. “He went down to Houston to work out for the Astros and he did pretty well there. He struck out four or five batters, and his velocity was getting up higher than they’d seen before.
“It got up to about 93 miles per hour, and they kind of bumped him up on their board a little.
Lyle is signed and headed to Greeneville to being his pro career. His signing bonus was over $900K.