A couple of nice pitching performances
highlight a relatively routine night in the minors, as Travis Snider continues
to hit and Dustin Majewski continues to draw walks. However, the star of the
night was a bright prospect in the Red Sox system who may be manning the
outfield in Fenway by 2008.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 2 @ Syracuse 8 (7) - Boxscore
Josh Banks threw a 7-inning complete game
to lead the Chiefs to victory over Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Banks threw 61 of his
85 pitches for strikes and had fine control, not walking a batter. Spreading
eights hits over the seven innings, Banks only ran into trouble in the fifth,
when he gave up his third of three hits to Alberto Gonzalez, who was cashed in
on a Bronson Sardinha home run.
Syracuse scored 4 in 5 innings off Yankees farmhand Tyler Clippard who was a
5.14 ERA after 3 starts this year. The other four runs were scored in the sixth
off reliever Erick Burke. Russ
Adams and John Hattig went hitless, as Ray Olmedo, Kevin Barker, Wayne Lydon
and Curtis Thigpen all had a multi-hit game. Barker managed to hit three RBI
singles and yet never crossed the plate himself. The game only took 1:54 to
play.
Portland 5 @ New Hampshire
2 - Boxscore
Red Sox prospect Jacob Ellsbury was the
star of the show. He accounted for four of Portland’s eight hits, including a double and
two triples. He scored two of Portland’s
runs and drove in the other three. If it wasn’t for him, New Hampshire would have pitched a pretty
good game. Former Blue Jay Eric Crozier batted cleanup and went 0-4 with 3 K’s.
Justin James gave up one run over 4 innings to take the loss, Jean Machi
surrendered a run to see his ERA increase to 1.42 and Tracy Thorpe gave up a
pair over two innings to keep his ERA steady at 9.00. Thorpe did retire four of
his six outs on groundballs, with one strikeout.
Robinzon Diaz went 3-4 with 2 RBIs as DH
and David Smith went 2-4 with 2 doubles and a run scored. Dustin Majewski went
1-3 with a double and, perhaps trying to make up for his slow offensive start,
continued to impress with his batting eye, drawing two walks.
Dunedin 5 @ Lakeland
7 - Boxscore
Russ Savickas took the loss with five runs,
three earned, over 5.1 innings. He walked two and struck out 6. A trio of Dunedin errors (by Danny Core, Anthony Garibaldi and Josh
Kreuzer) did the team in, as they allowed three unearned Lakeland runs during the contest. Dunedin added one
unearned run themselves, so one wonders how the game would have ended had there
been flawless, or at least errorless, defence. Dunedin only had six hits on the day, but far
more impressive was the team’s eight walks, which were split up evenly amongst
four hitters.
Kane County 3 @ Lansing 4 - Boxscore
Four thousand and five fans came out to see
Zach Dials continue to look very impressive. Dials pitched five innings of
shutout, two-hit ball, while striking out 4. He’s only walked one batter in
fifteen innings on the year and has a 10:1 K:BB ratio. Paul Phillips struck out
three over 1.1 whilst notching his second save of the year.
Lansing scored all of their runs via the home run. Travis Snider hit a
two-run homer, his first of the year, to push his slugging percentage up to
.667. Josh Bell had a home run in the fourth and Brian Pettway had his third of
the year in the sixth and is also slugging .667 this year.
3 star selection
3rd star – Kevin Barker, 3-4, GIDP, 4 RBI
2nd star – Josh Banks, 7 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 2 K
1st star – Zach Dials, 5 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 4 K
