Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - On May Four, Four Wins May Be Good For The Affiliates

On May Four, Four Wins May Be Good For The Affiliates

The Lugnuts scored nine in central Michigan, Sarasota was SOL in the FSL, pitching continues to dominate in Double-A and thanks to Ryan Glynn and Jason Arnold, there was no trouble in Triple-A.

Syracuse 5, Ottawa 1
Box score, game story

What a night for Ryan Glynn. Just one run in seven innings and he retired Enrique Wilson three times. Jason Arnold came into a three-run game in the bottom of the eighth with the bases loaded and stranded all three runners, then followed with three outs in the ninth for his third save of the year. He's the new nominal closer in Syracuse, with Matt Whiteside enjoying life at the back of the bullpen in Toronto, and he's off to a great start.

The difference was the four-run seventh, highlighted by...well, nothing. A bunch of singles and groundouts. Overall, Gabe Gross reached base three times with a double and two walks. Jason Alfaro, Anton French (who scored twice) and Chad Mottola all collected two hits.

Tim Raines Jr. (would he be "Pebble"?) scored and drove in the only Ottawa run with a solo homerun in the sixth.

New Hampshire 3, Norwich 1
Box score

A nice performance by Ismael Ramirez last night, giving up only one run on two hits and facing just two batters over the minimum through five innings. Three strikeouts as well. Bauxite Stellers Jay listened to the game and said the "Norwich radio guys were amazed at him painting the outside corner with his fastball." Also, Ryan Houston was terrific in three innings of relief.

As far as the hitters are concerned, the first run came in the first inning when leadoff man Ron Acuna reached on an infield single, stole second, went to third on a throwing error, and scored on a sac fly by Carlo Cota. However, the big runs came in the ninth with the score tied at one. Rob Cosby and Vito Chiaravalotti came up back-to-back with the bases loaded and each drove in one run, by a single and sac fly, respectively. Kevin Barker scored once and had the only extra-base hit for the Fishers.

Some more from Stellers Jay: While "the Navigators did hit a lot of deep fly balls...off the top of my head, I don't think very many were really well hit. Acuna and [Miguel] Negron were camped out under them waiting for them to come down. They didn't have to make too many 'plays' to record outs."

It wasn't all good, though, as he also noticed the F-Cats "didn't hit a ball hard all day. Lots and lots of slowly hit grounders to infielders." Thanks for the observations!

Dunedin 5, Sarasota 4 (10)
Box score

I'm sure it was a fun ending for the 510 souls who braved the chilly 70 F weather down in Dunedin. The Blue Jays scored in the bottom of the tenth to win by one, thanks to Manny Mayorson's based-loaded single. Mayorson also started a pair of 6-4-3's last night -- he can do it all!

David Purcey didn't fare too well last night, though. Four runs, four walks and four hits in four innings leaves a lot to be desired. If it's any consolation, he struck out the side in the fourth before getting pulled. Milton Tavarez pitched the eighth and ninth, striking out three in the process.

David Smith opened the scoring with a solo shot in the bottom of the second. A walk and four singles followed, scoring two more. Jayce Tingler walked once. Adam Lind went 0-for-5.

Lansing 9, Quad Cities 4
Box score

Slugging shortstop Ryan Klosterman doubled and homered, driving in two and scoring three times as Lansing picked up twelve hits. Yuber Rodriguez, off to a V-Dub-like-start, went 2-for-5 with 3 RBI. Interesting note: even though the Lugnuts plated nine, they left 10 men on base.

Juan Perez went six innings in what was easily the best start of the year for the skinny 23 year old. The Other Joey McLaughlin pitched a scoreless ninth.

Your Three-Star Selection:
3. Ryan -- I mean, Manny Mayorson
2. Ryan Glynn
1. Ryan Klosterman

Today’s Games:
Syracuse (Downs) @ Ottawa (Baldwin), 6:05 ET.
New Hampshire (Banks) @ Norwich (Garcia), 6:35 ET.
Dunedin (Zackson) vs Sarasota, 7:00 ET.
Lansing (Wideman) vs Swing of the Quad Cities (Dove), 7:05 ET.

Posted by Rob on Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 08:19 AM EDT.

On May Four, Four Wins May Be Good For The Affiliates | 24 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

H Winfield Teut - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 08:58 AM EDT (#115745) #

Quiroz out now with a collapsed lung...again....i called him captain fiberglass, and no one liked it, but you got to admit, he is at least snake bit, now we are looking at June before he hits AAA.

kpataky - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 10:19 AM EDT (#115756) #

The tandem of Ismael Ramirez, Ryan Houston and Lee Gronkiewicz worked their magic in Norwich yesterday, striking out 7 and limiting the Navigators to only 5 hits. The only run the Navigaors could score came on a contested Home Run by Tim Hutting in the third inning. Hutting's drive of starting pitcher Ismael Ramirez hit high off the wall in left center, and Hutting stopped at second base with what appeared to be a double. After Norwich Manager Dave Machemer came out to challenge the ruling, the umpires convened and Hutting was awarded a home run. It was the only run Ramirez gave up in his 5 innings of work. Ramirez's unorthodox pitching motion kept the Navigators' hitters off balance and he limited them to only 2 hits in his initial start since being activated from the DL. Ryan Houston followed and was equally impressive - striking out 4 in his 3 innings of work, while allowing no runs. Houston earned the win when his teammates broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the 9th, scoring 2 runs. After the first two runners got on, cleanup batter Maikel Jova laid down a beautiful sacrifice bunt (which surprised everyone). Those two runners scored on a single by Rob Cosby and a sac fly by Vito Chiaravalloti respectfully. Lee Gronkiewicz worked around a hit in the ninth for his sixth save, lowering his ERA to 0.93.

kpataky - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 10:32 AM EDT (#115757) #

Of note: Ron Acuna made one of the most spectacular catches I have ever seen in Minor League Baseball. There was a drive off of Ramirez that looked like a certain extra base hit. Acuna was racing back towards the left center field wall and then made a leaping catch. But what was most spectacular was that he appeared to have overrun the ball, but while in mid air, reached back behind his head to make the grab. The entire Fisher Cats dugout stood up and cheered and you could hear many loud yells of encouragement in Spanish.

Mike Green - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 11:37 AM EDT (#115767) #

Thanks, Kevin. I love the pictures.

kpataky - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 11:49 AM EDT (#115768) #

Like they say in the MLB commercials, "I live for this!"

Sister - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 11:56 AM EDT (#115769) #

The boxscore for Dunedin indicates that Purcey pitched 4 innings, giving up 4 hits, 4 walks, and 3 runs (only 1 earned, with 6 strikeouts.

Not quite as bad as described.

Stellers Jay - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 12:08 PM EDT (#115770) #

Kevin, nice pictures. Does Ramirez throw in a "3/4" motion? That picture looks like he's almost a submarine pitcher. The radio call from the Norwich guys, on the Acuna catch was hilarious. It took them about 25 seconds to figure out what the heck happened. The originally called it a homerun and then after about 20 seconds of silence indicated that Acuna did catch the ball. The PBP man was sheepish for the rest of the inning and even joked that he was being replaced for the rest of the game. All in all very entertaining.

kpataky - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 12:18 PM EDT (#115773) #

Ramirez definitely does not come over the top. In stopped motion, he looks like he's pushing the ball to the plate. He starts his motion around the belt, and then brings the ball back up to his right shoulder and then kind of flings it across his body. He was picking apart the outside corner to right handed batters all day.

Stellers Jay - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 12:24 PM EDT (#115774) #

Thanks again Kevin. Are the Jays pitching instructors doing anything with his delivery (considering he's throwing across his body)? It's been well documented that they are working with Perkins to get him to stop throwing across his body. They are both on the 40 man roster, I would think they would be doing the same thing with Izzy. Unless the Perkins situation is just to help him with his control, Ramirez doesn't seem to have that problem.

Pepper Moffatt - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 12:26 PM EDT (#115775) #

Excellent pictures, Kevin! It's really cool to see pictures of players you don't get to see too much of, like some of the mid-range minor league prospects.

Lugnut Fan - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 12:26 PM EDT (#115776) #

Kevin,

Great pics and summary. I tried to follow your lead the other night with pics from the Lansing game, but couldn't figure out how to attach them to a thread, so I just gave up. I will be in Lansing tonight for the wrap up of the Lugnut / Swing series, so maybe I will give it another go.

Maldoff - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 12:29 PM EDT (#115778) #

Just to clarify, the New Hampshire game is actually at 6:35 tonight, not 10:35 this morning. Don't know why, but that's what it says on their website.

kpataky - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 12:42 PM EDT (#115782) #

Here is an explanation in pictures on Ramirez's delivery.

From the belt. Up to the shoulder. What the batter sees.

Gerry - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 12:47 PM EDT (#115783) #

Are the Jays pitching instructors doing anything with his delivery (considering he's throwing across his body)?

Yes they are working with him on it. I reported that Dave LaRoche said that after my trip to Binghamton.

kpataky - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 12:48 PM EDT (#115784) #

Lugnut Fan: Being a dynamic web developer for my "day" job gives me some wonderful tools to use to create my posts here. I am using the latest version of Microsoft Front Page. I create my HTML using tables and the links are to pages on my own personal server and domain. I copy and paste the raw HTML into the Comment Box, select HTML formatted for the post mode and then I preview. Sometimes it doesn't look quite right on Da Box, so I have manipulate the HTML by hand and keep previewing it until it looks cool enough for presentation on this site.

;-)

Lugnut Fan - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 01:06 PM EDT (#115787) #

Thanks Kevin.

I'm an automotive design engineer by day. I think we should have some of that technology somewhere available, but it is probably in our quality or warranty department :(.

Stellers Jay - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 01:13 PM EDT (#115788) #

Awesome explanation with the pictures Kevin.

Magpie - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 01:42 PM EDT (#115797) #

Wonderful pictures, Kevin. It's really great to see these guys.

Does anyone know anything more about the Quiroz collapsed lung. It sounds as if this is something of a pre-existing condition rather than injury-related, and that they hope surgery will correct it permanently. The lung collapses when air builds up in between the lung and the chest wall, and can be created by a hole in the lung or an injury to the chest wall. Has anyone any idea what Quiroz' problem is?

Pistol - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 01:46 PM EDT (#115798) #

Here's something funny:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/minors/hotsheet2005.html

Congratulations to the fans of the Toronto Blue Jays, winners of the first (and last) Least Psychotic Hot Sheet Fans award. Since I took over the Hot Sheet last season, I have saved emails from readers accusing me of bias against their favorite team. It took two weeks into year No. 2, but that wacky Blue Jays fan finally came through and completed my set of 30, accusing me of not only being biased against the Blue Jays, but the entire nation of Canada.

Ok, somebody fess up...

uglyone - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 01:56 PM EDT (#115801) #

As I understand it (mainly from googling and some info from doctor friends)....with a collapsed lung, they usually don't perform corrective surgery if it happens the first time. However, there's a fairly high chance of it happening again within 2 years. If that happens (as in this case), they then perform corrective surgery, which keeps the chances of it re-occurring down to 5%.

kpataky - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 01:56 PM EDT (#115802) #

I'll try to call Q tonight after my son's little league game to see what's up. Last week, we spoke by phone and he seemed fine and ready for a return.

Marc Hulet - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 02:02 PM EDT (#115805) #

Actually it was a regular poster over at BlueJayWay.ca. He seemed kind of proud of it.

Stellers Jay - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 02:56 PM EDT (#115822) #

Speaking of injuries, does anybody have an update on when the Guam Bomber will be back in action? I think the original diagnosis in spring training was around 6 weeks for Hattig, which is quickly appraoching.

Thomas - Thursday, May 05 2005 @ 05:27 PM EDT (#115840) #

Kevin, wonderful job with the pictures.

It's great to get a visual of something like Ramirez's delivery. With your pictures and Gerry's interviews, it's like we're right at the ballpark.

On May Four, Four Wins May Be Good For The Affiliates | 24 comments | Create New Account

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