Thursday 9/06/2012 Minor League Updates

[texasdave]

18-year old Sal Romano will take the mound for Billings in a do-or-don't season finale. The Osprey counter with 60's folk-rocker Donovan's favorite ballplayer, Ross Hurdy Gerdeman. Game starts shortly. Going to get the dog-walking duties out of the way early tonight. I see Mace can't be trusted to hold a lead for three innings.

[texasdave]

Missoula jumps out to a 2-run lead in the bottom of the first. A walk, a bunt single and two ground ball singles delivered the damage. Billings has a double by Carlos Sanchez in two go-arounds. Bottom of the second.
Romano strikes out the first batter in the second. Mustang Sal strikes out the second batter he faces. Back to the top of the order and Ruiz walks for the second time in two innings. Runner on first with two down. A warning track fly hauled in by Amaral. On to the third. Gotta get those bats going. 2-0 Osprey.

[texasdave]

Top of the third. Brandon Dailey with a leadoff double. Murillo strikes out. One down. Just the same as any other out. Do not think otherwise. I am off the soapbox. Ground ball by Amaral moves Dailey to third. Two outs. For the second straight inning the Mustangs have a runner on third with two down. Lost my internet connection for a minute there and they are now playing commercials. Not a good sign. I am going with three outs and the run did not score. It turns out that Vincej hit one up the middle and it took a fine play to gun him down at first.

Bottom of the third. Ground ball fielded by Dailey in short right. Flip to first. One down. Another grounder to second. Two down. Mejias-Brean is playing in and a high hopper goes over his head. Runner on first. Sal Romano picks off the runner. 2-0 after three.

[texasdave]

Top of the fourth. I love this Billings' announcer.
Wunderkind Jesse Winker lines a single to right to open up the Mustangs fourth. Slow roller off the bat of Mejias-Brean to second moves Winker into scoring position with one out. Tapper back to the mound and they get Winker in a rundown. He stays in it long enough for Sanchez to move into second. Pigott lines a single to right. Sanchez gets a poor break, runs through the stop sign, luckily falls down and scrambles back to third. Wild pitch. Woohoo. A gift. 2-1 as Sanchez scores and Pigott goes to second. The catcher could not locate the baseball as the pitcher had to retrieve the ball up the first base line. Lentz lines to left but Mustangs cut the deficit in half. 2-1.

Bottom of the fourth.
Bouncer to the mound. One down. Line single to left. Line single that almost undressed Romano. 1st and 2nd. Fossas out to the mound. Probably telling Romano to throw more cheese. Grounder to first. Romano late off the mound. Bases juiced. Ball hit to the right side the pitcher covers. How hard can that be? They teach that in Little League. Off my soapbox again. Broken-bat single that just clears the second baseman. Two runs are plated. 4-1. Osprey dinking and dunking the Mustangs to death. Sac fly makes it 5-1. HBP. Romano heading to the shower. I didn't catch the reliever's name. Ground ball to Dailey ends this fourth-inning garbage. 5-1 Missoula.

[Tuff Nut]

Dave, you gonna do it all tonite?.......Your lapse last nite cost us.......lol..........Go 'stangs.

[mace]

Sorry, dave. Watching the Bearcats get it done. Mustangs, not so much.

I agree that the Billings announcer is pretty darn good. Get the man some runs.

[texasdave]

Originally Posted by Tuff Nut

Dave, you gonna do it all tonite?.......Your lapse last nite cost us.......lol..........Go 'stangs.

I should take a couple-inning break. Can't hurt.
Gonna watch the Bearcats for awhile.
Someone get the Mustangs some runs please.

[Tuff Nut]

Originally Posted by texasdave

I should take a couple-inning break. Can't hurt.
Gonna watch the Bearcats for awhile.
Someone get the Mustangs some runs please.

Ya know I was just messin'(heck no, you don't get no break....get back to work..........SLACKER.......)
You, and others do a fine job with these updates...........look forward to them every night, during the season. Can't see how ya keep up with all of them. and the Reds too.( Ya got more spare time than I do) Or no wife.......

[mace]

The Mighty Osprey tacked on one in the bottom of the seventh to extend the lead to 8-4. The Billings pitcher (Jesus Adames), pitching coach (Tony Fossas) and announcer all agreed that Adames was getting jobbed on the balls and strikes, which led to three walks. Adames was ejected as he left the mound at the end of the inning, which came to a close when Beau Amaral tracked down a fly at the center-field wall with the bases loaded.

Winker has two hits and Vincej brought home two with a double.

[mace]

Mejias-Brean homers off the LF foul pole to open the eighth. 8-5. Announcer says, "There was no call to make there for home plate umpire Sean Allen, who has struggled at times with fair and foul calls."

[mace]

Billings strands the bases loaded in the top of the eighth. Still 8-5 going into the bottom.

I'll hand it off here . . .

[mace]

And, if anybody's still interested, 8-5 was the final. Pretty stinko way for Billings to end a good season. That Wednesday night loss was pretty brutal.

The Mustangs did put on a couple baserunners in the 9th, the first on Jesse Winker's third hit of the night. He finished his first pro season at .338 (.443 OBP). I suspect he will place high on our Top 40 (or 50?) list this offseason . . . So should Drew Cisco, whose performance Wednesday night was very impressive.

[klw]

Originally Posted by mace

The Mustangs did put on a couple baserunners in the 9th, the first on Jesse Winker's third hit of the night. He finished his first pro season at .338 (.443 OBP). I suspect he will place high on our Top 40 (or 50?) list this offseason . . . So should Drew Cisco, whose performance Wednesday night was very impressive.

MLB.com just did a ranking and put Winker at 14 in a Reds top 20.

[Scrap Irony]

Originally Posted by klw

MLB.com just did a ranking and put Winker at 14 in a Reds top 20.

That may be a little low, but, remember, he's doing this in the Pioneer League. That's a long way from the majors.

[Benihana]

Winker is undoubtedly one of the Top 10 prospects in the Reds system at this point. You could make a case for him as high as 5 or 6.

I could see his bat projecting similarly to Todd Frazier, which is a much higher compliment than it was a year ago.