Thursday 7/12/2012 Minor League Updates

[texasdave]

Romano lifted in the fourth. He retired the first Orem batter in the inning and then five straight reached. Dan Langfield on. Billings' broadcaster says Langfield has the biggest arsenal of pitches of any Mustangs' hurler and can reach the mid-90s 'with ease'.

[mace]

Steve Selsky has a pair of triples, and Bakersfield leads 3-2 after four. Jamie Walczak has struck out 7.

[mace]

Dayton won 8-5. Buckley was 3-5 with a triple. Waldrop, Silva and Sierra all had two hits. Michael Dennhardt continued to roll in relief.

[mace]

Winker's 1-2 with a double and two walks. He wants to be Joey Votto when he grows up.

Billings trails 8-3 after seven.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by mace

Winker's 1-2 with a double and two walks. He wants to be Joey Votto when he grows up.

Billings trails 8-3 after seven.

You could certainly be much worse things.

[mace]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Josh Kennelly is the first Australian catcher ever to homer in the Reds organization. He's 2-2 tonight for the AZL lads, who lead 3-2 in the sixth.

Argenis Aldazoro is 3-3 with two doubles. I've refrained from mentioning him because his name is so dang hard to get right, but 3-3 with two doubles cannot be overlooked.

Pedro Diaz fanned 6 in 3.1 IP. Both runs against him were unearned.

[mace]

Theo Bowe misses Billy. He's 0-3. Devin Lohman, taking over at SS, does not. He's 2-2.

[mace]

Seth Mejias-Brean hit his first professional HR tonight for Billings.

[mace]

Selsky has added a HR to go with his two triples. I wonder if he could trade in one of the triples for a single and a double--same total bases--and call it a cycle.

[Scrap Irony]

Originally Posted by texasdave

Bats go down in order. Lose 8-5.

Weird night at the ballpark in Louisville. Neither team hit the ball all that hard in the first few innings, yet both had 9 hits and 5 runs by the fourth inning. Gregorius had two plays that were Little League, but blew them both.

In the first, Gustafson caught the Brave runner off first, threw it to second, but Gregorius, not in position, dropped the ball while "sprinting" to the bag. Then, in the third, with a Brave runner attempting to steal and Gregorius covering the bag, the ball was hit slightly to his right. He stopped, turned, tried to backhand the ball, and had it squirt out of his hand.

Neither play was considered an error.

(He apparently made a good play later in the game, but I was in the can and didn't see it.)

The left side ump blew two really easy calls as well.

One at 2B when he called the Bravo out on the way to a double play. (Nice play by Janish to get the ball and toss it to Gregorius.) The kid sticks on second as the Bats are leaving the field. Bell comes out to ask why his players are called back. The ump (and Bell) have a heart to heart. The Brave player stays and they run it back again with two outs. (The only thing I can figure is perhaps Gregorius didn't get near the bag, though he looked like he was there.)

The second blown call was worse. Bravo attempted steal. Navarro throws a seed to Rodriguez. He's out by three feet. Bats players are jogging off the field and the runner took off his helmet to give to the third base coach before the ump called him safe. Bell came out again to have a heart to heart. Ump was behind the runner in the baseline-- no way he saw that play.

Too, Smith got absolutely rocked. His were the only balls hit all that hard all night.

I've been to Louisville about 100 times over the past few years. This was the smallest crowd I've ever seen. Totally disinterested, too. Being bad really sucks the life out of a team, I'd imagine.

[lollipopcurve]

While they don't have the best prospects in the system, I like the Dayton team right now, especially the position player group. A lot of second tier prospects putting solid seasons together. Competitive lineup top to bottom.

On the other hand, the two short season teams still feel amorphous to me. Big rosters, inconsistent lineups. Just a few flashes of top performance (Winker, Stephenson among them), but otherwise pretty pedestrian so far. Looking forward to Travieso's debut.

[batsfan]

I was at the Bats game last night - Gregorius looked good, he had a couple of nice hits, good baserunner, and looked excellent defensively - he made a very nice play almost behind second to throw a runner out. I'm not sure if Paul Janish has ever played second before - if so just a couple of times - but he played like a gold-glover there last night. Phipps is hacking at everything - what happened to him???

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by batsfan

I was at the Bats game last night - Gregorius looked good, he had a couple of nice hits, good baserunner, and looked excellent defensively - he made a very nice play almost behind second to throw a runner out. I'm not sure if Paul Janish has ever played second before - if so just a couple of times - but he played like a gold-glover there last night. Phipps is hacking at everything - what happened to him???

Phipps hacked at everything last year too. He just had an incredibly lucky streak going on that hid it because the ball was finding the outfield grass instead of a fielders glove.

[Scrap Irony]

I didn't realize how good Selsky's numbers are both at Bakersfield and overall.

He's old for the league and will need to mash, as he's a corner OF, but, so far in his career, Selsky's done very well. Most of his numbers come from great hitting leagues, so you may take what he's done with a grain of salt, but he's been outstanding in High A.

Next season, he'll likely move to Pensacola next season. That's the proving ground, obviously. He's got an outside shot at moving up late this year.

Someone to keep an eye on.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by Scrap Irony

I didn't realize how good Selsky's numbers are both at Bakersfield and overall.

He's old for the league and will need to mash, as he's a corner OF, but, so far in his career, Selsky's done very well. Most of his numbers come from great hitting leagues, so you may take what he's done with a grain of salt, but he's been outstanding in High A.

Next season, he'll likely move to Pensacola next season. That's the proving ground, obviously. He's got an outside shot at moving up late this year.

Someone to keep an eye on.

Kind of like Bryson Smith, who has done nothing but hit since being drafted, but has also spent 95% of him time playing in launching pad type environments. Both are guys to watch for to see how they perform outside of the 'everyone hits here' leagues.