Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine
Sorry for the delay, folks.  Only one win on Sunday but some impressive performances from the cream of the crop helped ease the pain.


Las Vegas 4    Iowa 5

The 51s dropped this one but you can't fault Travis Snider who belted two homers to give him 12 in 42 AAA games this year.  Snider, as you are no doubt aware, has been on a serious tear in the PCL and has his season OPS up to 1.070 thanks in part to a ridiculous start to August which has seen him post a 1.030 Slugging Percentage and a 1.569 OPS.  His ticket back to Toronto can't be too far off, now.

Another Box favourite, Angel Sanchez, hit his 5th homer of the year to push his OPS over .800.  J.P. Arencibia was 1-for-4 with a doubleand two whiffs while Brian Dopirak had a single in four trips.

Journeyman Marty McLeary started and took the loss.  Zach Stewart retired the only two men he faced, while Bubbie Buzachero pitched a perfect ninth including a strikeout.



Altoona 6    New Hampshire 3

Not a great start for Randy Boone who allowed six runs on ten hits in his five innings of work.  On the brightish side, he only walked one and struck out five.  Matt Hensley and Nate Starner provided four innings of shutout relief. 

At the plate, David Cooper had a nice night going 3-for-4 with a double and a walk while both Scott Campbell and Al Quintana had two hits including a homer each.



Daytona 1    Dunedin 7


A nice night for the D-Jays who cruised despite outhitting Daytona just 8-6.    Kevin Ahrens had a rare, impressive game going 1-for-2 with two walks, two RBI, and a run scored.  Matthew Liuzza homered while Adam Loewen smacked his 20th double of the year.

Another Box favourite, Robert Bell, continued his strong season tossing six innings of three hit, one run ball while striking out seven against just one walk.  In his last 34.1 innings, Bell has posted a 1.57 ERA and 43 strikeouts against just 11 walks.  And stop me if you've heard this before but Tim Collins struck out two of the four batters he faced.



Dayton 10    Lansing 9

The Lugnuts lost a slugfest in Michigan despite strong showings from, well, most of the lineup.  Mark Sobolewski and Tyler Pastornicky both had three hits while Mike McDade and Brian Van Kirk contributed two apiece. 

Chad Beck started and was awful allowing 8 runs in 4.1 innings of work.  Frank Gailey worked 2.2 innings of four-strikeout ball in relief.  Apropos nothing, the game also featured five hit batsmen and a balk.



Auburn was Lightninged out.

The GCL Blue Jays never play on Sundays.


Three Stars:

3rd Star: 
David Cooper; 3-for-4, 2B, BB
2nd Star: Travis Snider; 2-for-4 2 HR
1st Star: Robert Bell; 6 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K






Travis Snider Would Like to Return to Toronto | 7 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Mike Green - Monday, August 10 2009 @ 04:37 PM EDT (#204350) #
Since the Midwest League All-Star break, Pastornicky is hitting .298/.354/.405 with an 11/12 W/K and he's stolen 20 out of 25 bases.  He's had a nice steady growth pattern so far.  My bet is that he is your starting shortstop in 2012. 
VBF - Monday, August 10 2009 @ 04:54 PM EDT (#204352) #
The Cubs/51s game was played at Wrigley and drew just over 16,000. Gotta say it would be really neat to fly the Jays AAA team (wherever they end up past '10) up to Toronto for a game one year.
ayjackson - Monday, August 10 2009 @ 06:03 PM EDT (#204357) #

Gotta say it would be really neat to fly the Jays AAA team (wherever they end up past '10) up to Toronto for a game one year.

If they moved a team to Winnipeg, you could have the first month of the season at Rogers Centre.   Winnipeg averages about 7500-8000 per game for Independent ball.

Dewey - Monday, August 10 2009 @ 07:19 PM EDT (#204390) #
Gotta say it would be really neat to fly the Jays AAA team (wherever they end up past '10) up to Toronto for a game one year.

The first time I saw Tony Fernandez and Jorge Bell (as he was called then) play was as members of the Syracuse Chiefs--at Exhibition Stadium, some time in the 1980's.   Syracuse had so much snow that they had been unable to play their games, so they came up to The Ex for a series against the Mets farm team (Tidewater?).  I remember it was the Mets because I watched Daryl Strawberry smash a ball over the centre field fence.  Attendance was quite sparse, however, and foul balls were flopping around for the gathering.
timpinder - Tuesday, August 11 2009 @ 12:40 AM EDT (#204445) #

Mike,

Where do you see Justin Jackson then?  Couldn't his poor season this year have been because of the injury?

Mike Green - Tuesday, August 11 2009 @ 10:08 AM EDT (#204484) #
Tim, with prospects like Pastornicky and Jackson, one never knows.  It is unlikely that both will be solid major leaguers, and it is therefore better for the organization to have two prospects like that. 

Jackson has struck out more than once per game every year of his minor league career so far.  My own gut instinct is that this is a greater barrier to success than Pastornicky's lack of pop.

andrewkw - Tuesday, August 11 2009 @ 09:12 PM EDT (#204563) #
I was in chicago for the debut of Them Crooked Vultures (Josh Homme, Dave Grohl & John Paul Jones) so I was lucky enough to catch this game. I bought tickets on the iowa cubs website and was very pleased to get tickets right behind home plate in the terrace level (similar to 200 level) for $14 a ticket.  Then I got there and scalpers were selling for 10$ a ticket. 

Snider did not disappoint as I told my friend he was going to be a real good hitter real soon.  Then he hit the first home run.   Nice to see guys like Howie Clark again.  Old friend John-Ford Griffen crushed a home run for the cubs as well.  This was my first visit to wrigley and it really felt like a spring traning game.  I'd never been to a minor league game but that's the feel I got .  It was the hottest day in chicago in 3 years.  So hot I left in the 8th just too much heat.  Without seeing a major league game here it was a bit tough to compare to other parks and the fact most of the time I was there, I was suffering borderline heat stroke, but I like fenway better but this is probably a close second in terms of having the best views (assuming you are not behind a pole) to watch major league baseball.

I would love to see the jays do this once a year perhaps a different minor league team every year.  Road to Rogers Center doesn't have quite the same ring though.  Because it was so hot I did not try any wrigley food other then vodka lemonaids which were quite nice in the heat.    I actually got Sniders first home run on video but the camera work is not great.  Here are some of the pictures I took

http://picasaweb.google.ca/corpusse/Wrigley#



Travis Snider Would Like to Return to Toronto | 7 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.