Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - No Dip For Chip or Casey and a Very Nice Day For Acey

No Dip For Chip or Casey and a Very Nice Day For Acey

Some good pitching last night on the farm (2-3 record, though), with one starter striking out 11, another pitching seven shutout innings and one more sort of went the distance. Actually, he didn't pitch a complete game at all. Read on for more.

Pawtucket 4, Syracuse 0
Boxscore

As you might have guessed, the offense didn't do a damned thing against Lenny DiNardo, Manny Delcarmen, Cla Meredith and uh...Curt something.

Chad Gaudin got the start and it was a tough, tough loss. Six innings, eleven K's and only one run on six hits. Win-loss records are entirely meaningless, I tell you. His ERA is now under 2 and a half. Josue Matos gave up a bunch in the seventh and eighth, moving the score from 1-0 to the final indicated above. Shouldn't he get the loss? Eh, I hate giving wins and losses to individual players.

New Hampshire 4, Portland 0
Boxscore

A huge win for the Fisher Cats, as they entered this game tied for first with the Portland Sea Dogs. They are now one game up, if you didn't already know. The series finishes up today with a twi-night doubleheader, and it would be great if the Fishers swept it.

Chip Cannon hit a homerun. We should copy that into every Minor League Update, it would save time. Not only did he go deep, this was his AA debut. In a severe pitcher's park! And he didn't strike out and he had another hit. Rob Cosby also hit a homer and he also had two hits: the homer and a double.

A tremendous starting performance by Casey Janssen, who also made his AA debut yesterday afternoon. Seven shutout innings, striking out eight and only allowing two hits -- no walks! And no extra-base hits! Welcome to Fisher Cats Ballpark, where runs go to die. The relievers did well, except for Vince Perkins. According to Pistol, the Canadian "walked the first two batters and promptly got pulled. Even warming up he was wild, throwing a couple to the backstop." Jesse Carlson and Lee Gronkiewicz each threw to three batters and they both retired the first two, then struck the third one out. Good job, men.

Dunedin did not play yesterday.

Kane County 7, Lansing 3
Boxscore

If you believe the boxscore, A.J. Wideman pitched a complete game. Well, he didn't! The game recap at LansingLugnuts.com says Wideman "departed in the sixth inning." The Lansing State Journal says Wideman "gave up five runs on seven hits with five strikeouts and one walk over 5 2/3 innings."

That's two days in a row the Lansing boxscore has been wrong. Does it require too much effort to note when a pitcher leaves the game and another one takes his place? I mean, there's nothing to tell you that it's happening, aside from the manager walking out to the mound, the pitcher leaving the field, the reliever walking in from the bullpen, the extended break between at bats, the announcement of "Now pitching for the Lugnuts..." and so on.

Eugenio Velez hit his first homer of the season, while Luke Hetherington collected three hits, though they were all singles and none of them scored any runs, nor did he score himself. But that's not his fault, and you can read a profile of Hetherington by Mark Feather for the Lansing State Journal here. The first paragraph: He's only 22 years old, but Lansing outfielder Luke Hetherington carries himself like a veteran. He's also reached base seven times in two games!

Auburn 8, Lowell 4
Boxscore

Josh Sowers started on the same day as Josh Towers. That's just confusing. Sowers gave up three runs over three and a third, then he turned it over to Billy Carnline. Carnline stranded the inherited runner, then pitched until the eighth inning, only giving up one run. They both pitched to 14 batters, for what it's worth.

Anthony Garibaldi knocked in three with his second homer of the season in the second inning, putting the Doubledays up 3-0. A couple of doubles in the fifth by Kyle Bohm and Josh Bell brought home two more to put Auburn on top, and that was all they needed. That didn't stop Jermy Acey from hitting a huge opposite-field two-run homer in the ninth. The lead was 8-4 then, and Yesson Berroa picked up the five-out save.

Acey's name is in fact pronounced "jur-mi" (rhymes with blur-eye), and he made the start in the outfield as Ryan Patterson sat out the game, as Saturday's injury caused him to leave after four innings. He has a bruised back, if you're wondering.

Johnson City 8, Pulaski 2
Boxscore

Wilfreddy Aguirre made his fourth start yesterday, hoping to improve on his 3.2 IP/game, 9/8 BB/K ratio, 6.55 ERA and 2.27 WHIP. He didn't, to say the least. A four-run second and a two-run third, including seven baserunners in two and two-thirds innings and two walks against one strikeout made all four statistics I just quoted even worse. And I picked those (for illustration) before the game started! We should give the guy a break, though -- he's only four months older than me.

No less than six relievers followed Aguirre, and none of them did much of anything of interest. So how about those hitters? Well...not much. The only one who had an extra-base hit or more than one hit was Christopher Looze. The only RBI went to Heliezer Aguilar, a single to right. Looze also scored on a wild pickoff throw, which is why Pulaski had two runs but only one RBI.

Today's Games:
Syracuse does not play (All-Star Break).
New Hampshire (Banks-Ramirez) vs Portland (Pauley-Lester), 5:30 (DH).
Dunedin (Yates) vs Brevard County, 7:05.
Lansing (Keng) vs Kane Country (Ford), 7:05. It's Dog Day in Lansing tonight!
Auburn @ Lowell, 7:00.
Pulaski has the day off.

Standings:
Syracuse: 46-45, third place, 6 games back of Buffalo
New Hampshire: 46-41, tied for first with Portland (45-40)
Dunedin: 12-5, first place, a half-game up on Lakeland
Lansing: 9-9, tied for second with three other teams, two games back of South Bend
Auburn: 10-9, third place, a half-game back of both Jamestown and Mahoning Valley
Pulaski: 9-10, third place, 4.5 games behind Danville

Three-Star Selection:
3. Chip Cannon
2. Chad Gaudin
1. Casey Janssen

Important Note:
For those of you worried about Francisco Rosario (and there are a lot of you), he will be activated from the DL and start for Syracuse on Thursday, the first game after the All-Star Break.

Posted by Rob on Monday, July 11 2005 @ 08:19 AM EDT.

No Dip For Chip or Casey and a Very Nice Day For Acey | 32 comments | Create New Account

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

Pistol - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 08:36 AM EDT (#122207) #

Chip Cannon hit a homerun. We should copy that into every Minor League Update, it would save time. Not only did he go deep, this was his AA debut. In a severe pitcher's park!

I'm not so sure that Fisher Cat Stadium is a severe pitcher's park, at least for LH batters. The RF line is just over 300 feet, and right center is 350. Cannon's HR was between those markers yesterday. He certainly didn't get all of it, but it still went out fairly easily (which also may tell you something about Cannon). On the other hand, LF consistently plays 30 feet deeper than RF (or at least as posted it is).

I don't know how easy it'd be to figure out the park factors for both LH and RH batters, but I suspect that if you were able to split them out that Fisher Cat Stadium would favor the LH power hitters over the RH power hitters by a good margin.

MatO - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 09:56 AM EDT (#122208) #

Any idea how hard Janssen was throwing?

Lugnut Fan - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 10:15 AM EDT (#122210) #

I think I can explain the box scores being wrong in Lansing. The official scorer in Lansing is the one that calls them in and the usual guy was on vacation this weekend. They had a replacement and he was having a rough time just getting the score in front of him right rather than worry about what he was telling minor league baseball, so that is what is going on there.

I went to the futures game yesterday and I have to say, half of Zack Jackson's motion looks pretty unorthadox, but the half from the time where he picks his front leg up and starts his drive to the time he follows through is very fluent and almost picture perfect mechanically. He kind of rushes through his motion at a 100 mph until he gets to that point though.

Pistol - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 10:17 AM EDT (#122211) #

Any idea how hard Janssen was throwing?

His fastball was consistently in the 87-90 range. There may have been a couple at 91 or 92, but that was the exception. Offspeed pitches were usually in the high 70s/low 80s range.

Lugnut Fan - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 10:30 AM EDT (#122213) #

Sounds pretty typical of Casey when he was here in Lansing.

Mike Green - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 11:42 AM EDT (#122219) #

Here's the Union-Leader game story for yesterday. Cannon had an adventure to get to the game, driving 4 hours to catch an early morning flight, and entering the game with 2 hours sleep. It didn't seem to affect him. Ah, youth.

Jacko - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 11:49 AM EDT (#122220) #

Did anyone see the Syracuse/Pawtucket game?

Gaudin's slider must have been really nasty yesterday in order to punch out 11 guys in 6 IP. Everyone is thinking that Bush is going to get the call after the ASB, but they might give Gaudin another shot instead.

John Northey - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 01:11 PM EDT (#122226) #

Gaudin and Whiteside are the types who drive GM's nuts I bet. Both doing extremely well in AAA but flop when given a trial in the majors. I think for Whiteside the biggest problem was he is a one inning pitcher who needs regular work, but was asked to do long relief with long breaks between outings. Gaudin is young and I'm not sure why he got homeritis but he now has given up 5 HR in 101 IP in AAA and 4 HR in just over 10 IP in the majors. Ouch. I'd give Gaudin another shot at the rotation during the Halladay holiday, with Bush being next in line if (when) Walker turns back into a pumpkin (btw, I'd love for Walker to keep going but odds are against it).

Marc Hulet - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 01:16 PM EDT (#122227) #

Whiteside's problem is that he is in his late 30s and was never all that good to begin with.

John Northey - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 01:21 PM EDT (#122230) #

Heh. Whiteside may be old and not have a great track record, but in 2005 he is doing amazingly well in AAA. 28 IP, 31 K, 4 BB. Now that is fantastic. 3 HR given up which isn't bad. But in the majors he had 3 HR in 3.2 IP, 5 BB, 5 K's. ie: as many HR and more BB in 3 IP than in 28 in AAA. To me that doesn't make sense. Yes, AAA is below the majors but an effective pitcher in AAA shouldn't pitch _that_ badly in the majors. Whiteside should be left in AAA this year to help Syracuse as the Jays have no use for a 1 inning pitcher right now, but he could be effective used properly I suspect.

Jacko - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 01:59 PM EDT (#122237) #

If his 2005 stint was Gaudin's first major league experience, I would have chalked up his struggles to the "deer in the headlights" effect. But it's not -- he spent time in the majors in 2003 and 2004, so he should not have been all that overwhelmed by the experience.

The thing I'm most concerned about is that Gaudin is that he's a Mike Nakamura clone. Enough stuff to make AAA guys look foolish, but not enough gas to get major leaguers out.

Pistol - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 02:11 PM EDT (#122240) #

Well, except that Gaudin is 22. He's way too young to be given the Nakamura label.

And prior to this year's callup Gaudin had a 106 ERA+ in 80 innings at age 20/21. Nakamura never had any success at the big league level.

If you're going to give up on a guy after a few bad starts you're not going to have very many pitchers.

Mylegacy - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 02:33 PM EDT (#122243) #

Back to Chip Cannon for a second.

He is 6'5" 215 pounds. Picture, the same height as Alex Rios only 20 pounds heavier! Picture, Alex in two or three years when he's put on 10 to 20 pounds!

Also Chip is 23. He'll be up late next year for a look, so we will control his rights till he's 30!

Drool, drool...

Four Seamer - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 02:50 PM EDT (#122246) #

so we will control his rights till he's 30!

It may be that I'm just a completely unreconstructed Reaganite, but that is one chilling phrase!

Mr. Selig, tear down that wall!

uglyone - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 02:56 PM EDT (#122248) #

If Chip keeps hitting at this clip, he could get a look with the big club late THIS year.

twh - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 03:07 PM EDT (#122251) #

It will be interesting to see where the park factor for Fisher Cats Ballpark winds up at the end of the year.

The park's dimensions really aren't that big. The thing is, so far 25 of their 42 home games came in April & May when the average game-time temp must have been 40-45 degrees (it's been in the low 30s for half a dozen games). I think that's had more to do with the low amount of run scoring than anything else. 20+ home games in August might balance that out.

As for RHB vs. LHB, the RF fence is very short and the wind blows out from left to right, but righties with decent power (Cosby, Kratz...Shelly "Sloth" Duncan from Trenton) don't have much trouble putting it out to "the Den" in left. Plus, I think every HR Ryan Roberts has hit at home has gone to the opposite way to right field.

CaramonLS - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 03:28 PM EDT (#122253) #

What makes me hold out hope for Gaudin was that he was in the Devil Rays organization who lets face it, hasn't developed a pitcher since Victor Zambrano.

Which makes me think that our organization can do a little better than that clown show out in Tampa.

Just... teach him a curve ball, palm ball, really something slower than his 78 MPH Slider, and his 92 MPH fastball.

Change up wont do that kid any good with that velocity difference.

I still hold out hope for Gaudin, because even though he is out of Minor league options at the end of this season, he is a project, but he could be a solid guy out of the pen or spot starter.

Mike Green - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 04:09 PM EDT (#122258) #

Even if Chip Cannon hits 15 homers in the next 6-7 weeks in double A, I doubt very much that he would get the call this year.

As for Gaudin, the concept of a 22 year old effective 4A pitcher is definitely new to me. He'll be a September call-up at the latest, and will (health permitting) get a shot at a full-time job in the Show in 06, perhaps in the bullpen.

JC - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 04:12 PM EDT (#122259) #

Couple of roster moves I didn't see mentioned anywhere on here.

Mark Sopko goes from Lansing to Dunedin.
Aaron Tressler goes from Auburn to Lansing.
Junior Chourio has disappeared off the Auburn roster.
Ricky Romero has been activated and is on the Auburn roster.
(Not sure if that is old news or not)

Mike Green - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 04:18 PM EDT (#122261) #

Thanks, JC. We didn't have the Chourio and Ricky Romero moves.

timpinder - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 04:59 PM EDT (#122272) #

About Casey JANSSEN, I've never had the opportunity to watch a minor league game but I follow the names and numbers. Someone just posted here that his fastball is only in the 87-90 MPH range, which was surprising to me given his numbers. Can anyone who might have seen him pitch tell me how, or why, he's been so unhittable in low A, high A, and his first start at AA? Is his lack of velocity perhaps why he wasn't drafted until the 4th round?
I was also wondering if anyone has the scoop on Fransisco Rosario's injury and when he might get back? I like David Bush, but I did some WHIP calculations and Rosario's WHIP is 1.18 compared to Bush's 1.29 in AAA. Bush might be a solid #4, maybe #3, but Rosario has the stuff to be a #2 and I'd like to see him soon. Josh Banks may have an ERA over 4, but his WHIP is a very impressive 1.11, probably why he's a AA all-star. Any ideas on when Banks might get the promotion to AAA?
As for Gaudin, at 5'11", I just don't see him starting in the bigs with an average fastball. If he's not traded he's probably destined to a career in the bullpen. Just my opinion.
Lots of questions, but I enjoy reading the input from people in the know.
Thanks.

Rob - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 05:12 PM EDT (#122274) #

I was also wondering if anyone has the scoop on Fransisco Rosario's injury and when he might get back?

Dude, seriously? My Important Note at the end of the article wasn't "scoopy" enough for you?

Maybe I'll make the text bright red...

Marc Hulet - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 05:25 PM EDT (#122276) #

Control. If a minor league pitcher has average, to above-average control in the low minors, he can dominate. Janssen has been successful because he has excellent control and five pitches, which keeps the hitters off balance and from getting a good read off of him.

Go to thebaseballcube.com and look up John Stephens' or Craig Anderson's careers. They both dominated the low minors and Anderson never saw the majors, while Stephens had a cup or two of coffee. Perfect examples of guys who had good command but could not break 90 mph.

Nigel - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 05:32 PM EDT (#122278) #

Marc, this is in no way disputing your basic point, but John Stephens was a bit of a unique case. Having seen him live twice, he actually never broke 85. The first time I saw him, it actually took me about a half dozen pitches before I realized that he wasn't throwing a knuckleball.

Mike Green - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 05:40 PM EDT (#122279) #

There are lots of reasons pitchers don't succeed. Stephens is an interesting case. He is now 25, and was able to maintain good K and W rates through the high minors and majors, but was vulnerable to the long-ball. Some of these guys do succeed in the long run. I don't know if Janssen will, but it certainly is possible.

Nigel - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 06:34 PM EDT (#122282) #

Mike G, I agree that velocity isn't all its cracked up to be, but thinking of a successful comparison for Stephens is tough. He's a right handed Moyer (with maybe an extra one or two MPH on his fastball). I really can't think of one pitcher who fits that profile.

timpinder - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 06:40 PM EDT (#122283) #

Rob,
I can't believe I didn't see that about Rosario. I usually read the game reports and scan to the 3 stars.
Thanks though, the bright red helped. That's good news! If I had to bet, it'll be Bush and Rosario at the back of the rotation next year, I hope to see Rosario in Toronto in
August or September.

After the sweep in Texas, I think the Jays are probably sellers. I think that's good since realistically they weren't going to win the pennant, and now their primary pitching prospects will be safer.

PeterG - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 08:08 PM EDT (#122290) #

I guess Greg Maddux hasn't really been that successful either without 90 plus on the fastball.

Nigel - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 08:23 PM EDT (#122291) #

For most of his career Maddux has been 88-90 with his fastball. There's a quantum difference between 82-84 which is where Stevens is and even 86-88. Bob Tewskbury at the very end of his career is about the closest comparable I can think of for Stephens.

Mike Green - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 09:07 PM EDT (#122298) #

Anyways, the discussion started with Janssen. He doesn't burn up the radar guns, but he does throw a high 80s fastball as many successful pitchers have done. Here's a question: how many Oriole starters of the 60s-80s did not possess a 90 mile per hour fastball? I'll start with Boddicker, who I don't think could throw 86.

Some call me Tim - Monday, July 11 2005 @ 09:51 PM EDT (#122300) #

Interesting to see that in Dunedin's 9-6 win tonight, Big Vito went 3-4 with a BB and 3 RBIs. One of those three was a 2 run homer. Good to see him back. It will be interesting to see if he starts challenging for a spot back at AA. I'm not sure where you'd put him though. Thoughts?

41s#fan - Thursday, July 14 2005 @ 03:19 PM EDT (#122671) #

I don't think Kyle is getting enough credit or playing time behind Bell and Bormaster. He should have been drafted higher; but some people are afraid he'll bail and go to med school.

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