Not much going on down on the farm tonight besides a stellar Taylor Cole outing. Buffalo, New Hampshire, and Lansing all struggled with the bat, while Dunedin ran out as the only winner.
Buffalo 2 Indianapolis 3
Buffalo is struggling and that’s largely down to a lackluster offence. Tonight the Bisons mustered seven hits with no extra base hits. Darin Mastroianni was the only Bison to have two hits. On the mound Chad Jenkins wasn’t all too impressive either. Through five and a third he yielded three earned runs on five hits and three walks. Those runs came by way of the homerun—two of them to be exact. Jenkins failed to strike out a batter. Please note for those interested in the upcoming draft—this is why you don’t draft a pitcher without at least one plus offering—awfully hard to get advanced hitters out without a plus offering or at least plus pitchability.
New Hampshire 2 Binghamton 7
Another rough outing for Aaron Sanchez tonight. Six earned runs and three walks over six innings ain’t pretty, but Sanchez did pitch into the seventh inning. At this point in his minor league career Sanchez really shouldn’t be going backwards. His BB/K ratio is plain ugly. I mean ideally Sanchez should have harnessed both a delivery and a fastball with this season being about developing secondary offerings and getting to somewhere in the 120-130 inning range. There have been reports too that suggest Sanchez is still throwing something like 90% fastballs. At this point Sanchez is clearly nowhere near a big league rotation.
Three hits from Jon Berti and a Hector Gimenez homerun paced the New Hampshire offence. 1-12 with RISP was not helpful.
Dunedin 7 Charlotte 0
Finally some offence. The Dunedin squad collected ten hits including two doubles—one apiece between Marcus Knecht and K.C. Hobson. Taylor Cole though was the real star tonight—pitching seven shutout innings, striking out nine, and allowing just three hits. Cole has added the strikeout to his game and looks one to follow as he should be pushed given his age. I saw him in Vancouver a few years back and while he put up big numbers he did so largely on the back of a solid, heavy 91-94mph fastball in a league where most guys couldn’t handle a major league fastball. I’m rooting for him and would like to hear a bit more about what he/the organization attribute his success so far this season to. Were there not whispers round these parts about the weighted ball program?
Great Lakes 3 Lansing 0
Not much going on in Lansing tonight. Brad Allen was solid over six innings and D.J> Davis’ triple represented the Lugnuts only extra base hit as they were shutout on the night. L.B. Dantzler’s twenty game on base streak came to an end tonight.
Three Stars
3. Nick Baligod
2. Marcus Knecht
1. Taylor Cole
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