The lower three teams won while what happens in Vegas needs to stay in Vegas. The undefeated Lansing Lugnuts continued to roll behind unheralded starter and Michigan native Jesse Hernandez who pitched seven shutout innings. Andrew Burns hit his first home run to get the scoring going. Dunedin also won again to run their record to 4-1 behind Casey Lawrence. New Hampshire won 3-2 with Drew Hutchison pitching six shutout innings but it wasn't Hutch's best start. Brad Glenn homered and scored twice to lead the offense. Las vegas were bad, the bright spot was Adeny Hechavarria who had three hits, including a based loaded triple.
It didn't take long for the Vegas rotation to get messed up. The opening day starter, Aaron Laffey, is with the Jays. Another starter, Tim Redding, has gone on the DL so Yohan Pino got the call to fly from New Hampshire to Las Vegas to start last night. Pino was hit around for eight runs in three innings.
Meanwhile the 51's hitters were facing Ryan Vogelsong making a rehab start. He shut them down through five innings in part thanks to two double plays turned behind him and Anthony Gose getting thrown out stealing again. Finally in the sixth inning Travis Snider doubled in Mike McCoy and Adeiny Hechavarria. In the seventh a bases loaded triple by Hechavarria made it a 9-5 game but that was as good as it got.
Hechavarria had three hits, Travis d'Arnaud had two after a slow start to the season. Gose and d'Arnaud are the two starters with batting averages under .200 but it is early.
Drew Hutchison pitched six shutout innings but it wasn't his best performance. He gave up eight hits and had to pitch out of trouble a couple of times. He also had zero strikeouts, not a good sign. Hutchison was also helped by AJ Jimenez who threw out two of Hutchison's base runners trying to steal. Ron Uviedo gave up solo home runs in the eight and ninth innings to make it interesting.
Brad Glenn scored the first two runs for the Fisher Cats. He homered in the second inning and singled and scored on a Mark Sobolewski double in the fifth. Sobolewski scored what would end up as the winning run on a wild pitch.
Glenn had three hits and Sobolewski two. Glenn and Justin Jackson lead the team with .375 batting averages.
Dunedin trailed 2-0 heading to the eight inning. In the eighth doubles by Sean Ochinko, Marcus Knecht and Ryan Schimpf, combined with two errors by Daytona, led to four runs for Dunedin. That was enough to secure the win although Danny Barnes had to work out of a bases loaded situation in the ninth.
Casey Lawrence started for the Jays and went six innings, giving up the two Daytona runs on six hits. Offensively Ochinko and Kevin Nolan had two hits each. Jake Marisnick went 0-5 to drop his average back below .300. So far this season Marisnick has had three multi-hit games with at least one extra base hit, and two games where he was hitless. Kevin Nolan has started well and is hitting .350. Nolan has primarily been a utility player through his first three seasons but has always hit well and I thought he looked like a gamer when I saw him play. It is good to see him get a full time job. Nolan is from New Hampshire and presumably would love to get promoted to AA at some point.
The juggernaut continues to roll. Lansing jumped out to a 6-0 lead before the bullpen gave up a couple of late runs. The star of the game was the starting pitcher, Jesse Hernandez, who pitched seven shutout innings without a ball leaving the infield. Hernandez had eight K's and only allowed one hit. Hernandez is the oldest starter on the Lugnuts at 23 years old but he is a Michigan native and also went to college in Michigan so playing for the Lugnuts must be fun for him. Tyler Ybarra gave up two runs in the eighth.
The game was scoreless until the fifth inning when the Lugnuts struck for five runs. Andy Burns got it going with a two run home run. Later Carlos Perez singled in two runners who had walked and then Perez scored on a single by KC Hobson. In the sixth Burns reached on an error and scored when Kellen Sweeney singled.
Lansing had just eight hits, they maximized their scoring chances. Kenny Wilson had two of the hits.
Three Stars
3rd star: Drew Hutchison
2nd star: Brad Glenn
1st star: Jesse Hernandez
