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Friday brought three wins and four losses. George Kottaras hit the go-ahead home run for Buffalo among his three hits. Dalton Pompey picked up a couple of hits. Lansing's David Harris drove in the first four runs of Lansing's eight. The Lugnuts also won. The final winners were Bluefield who rode a seven run first innings to victory.

New Hampshire lost a close one. Dunedin wasted a good Matt Boyd start with a bullpen blow up. Zak Wasilewski got hit early and often and Vancouver lost. The GCL Jays lost another one.



Scranton 7 Buffalo 11

The Bisons had two 5 run innings, the second one broke up a 6-6 game in the seventh. George Kottaras homered leading off that seventh inning and that was Buffalo's only home run of the night. Kottaras was 3-4, Cole Gillespie, on a major league rehab, was 3-5. Dalton Pompey and Matt Hague each had two hits.

Raul Valdes started but was long gone by the seventh. Ryan Tepera blew the save and got the win.


Portland 4 New Hampshire 3

Casey Lawrence started and was responsible for all four runs on six hits. Randy Boone and Blake McFarland kept Portland hitless the rest of the way.

HC Hobson and Jorge Flores each had two hits and an RBI although neither of them scored.


Dunedin 2 Tampa 5

Matt Boyd was excellent, six shutout innings, two hits, eight K's. Boyd left with a 2-0 lead, but Griffin Murphy gave up a couple to allow Tampa to tie and Danny Barnes allowed three more to take the loss.

Dwight Smith scored both runs. He hit a solo home run in the fourth. In the sixth he walked, moved up on another walk, stole third and scored on a Shane Opitz single. Opitz had two of the Jays five hits.


South Bend 5 Lansing 8

David Harris had a game, he drove in the first four runs for the Lugnuts. Harris was 2-4. DJ Davis had a nice game too, he was 2-3 with 2 walks and 2 RBI's. Dan Klein had three hits with a home run, and Matt Dean had two hits. Those four hitters were the only ones with a hit.

Starlyn Suriel went five innings giving up two runs on three hits. A parade of relievers brought it home while conceding three more runs.


Boise 10 Vancouver 3

It has been a tough year for Zak Wasilewski and Friday might have been the toughest. Zak pitched into the second inning, walked five, gave up three hits and five runs. The three subsequent pitchers all allowed runs.

The Canadians actually outhit Boise 12-11, although Boise led in walks 7-1. Franklin Barreto had three at-bats, walking once, before getting a half game off. Richard Urena went 1-5. Gunnar Heidt had a solo home run.


Kingsport 4 Bluefield 8 - game 1

This game was called after five innings. A seven run first put the game into cruise control for the Jays. The Jays had 7 hits in the first inning with three of them doubles. Aaron Attaway and Lane Thomas each had two hits, one of them a double.

Evan Smith didn't make it out of the fifth and didn't get the win. He gave up a run in the first and a three run home run in the third. Joey Aquino got the win.


Kingsport at Bluefield - game 2

Game 2 was called due to rain and will be played on Saturday.


GCL Phillies 8 GCL Blue Jays 3

Unfortunately this was a typical GCL Jays game of the last month. All four pitchers were scored upon including Turner Lee who started and took the loss. The hitters only managed four hits, all singles. The first two hitters of the game for the Jays singled and after that it was two hits the rest of the way.

The Jays record is 17-36 with six games left in the season.


3 Stars

3rd star: Matt Boyd

2nd star: David Harris

1st star: George Kottaras


Boxes

Kottaras Wants a Call-Up | 19 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Super Bluto - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 12:56 AM EDT (#292429) #
think you screwed up the Buffalo score there...
Super Bluto - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 12:58 AM EDT (#292430) #
You mean reversed the score, surely....
Super Bluto - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 12:59 AM EDT (#292431) #
Yes.. yes.. Reversed is what I meant...
Gerry - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 08:36 AM EDT (#292433) #
Fixed. Thanks to all of you who commented ;-)
John Northey - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 10:34 AM EDT (#292434) #
Interesting to look at leaderboards now...
Cole: #1 in K's for the minors, 11.3 K/9.
Norris: #4 in K's for the minors, 11.9 K/9 is the highest for anyone with 90+ IP in the minors (he has 118 IP)
Boyd: #12 in K's for the minors, 9.9 K/9

3 Jays in the top 12 for K's for the minors.  Nice.

Thomas - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 10:43 AM EDT (#292437) #
I'd like to see Kottaras get a promotion when the rosters expand in a week or so. His career seems to have taken a bit of an odd path and I'd be interested in watching him behind the plate for a few games, as I'd have expected someone with his offensive skills to have had a steadier career as a backup unless he had significant defensive weaknesses (or there was some other consideration at play).
Mike Green - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 12:26 PM EDT (#292441) #
It's the defence, Thomas. Kottaras has never been able to throw out baserunners at any kind of reasonable clip.  He'd be a fine 25th man on the roster in an age with smaller bullpens, a good left-handed bat who can play catcher in a pinch. 
Thomas - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 02:00 PM EDT (#292443) #
I've heard about his defensive shortcomings, Mike, and it explains to some degree why he's never been able to catch on as a backup in a more permanent role, but I'm not sure that really explains why he's bounced around as much as he has. Maybe no team really values him at all solely because of the arm, but he's been waived twice this year, which still seems strange.
dan gordon - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 02:50 PM EDT (#292445) #
Kottaras has a better career slugging % against right handers than Buster Posey does. The batting average is weak, but he does walk a lot, so the OBP is decent. Career caught stealing % is 18% compared to a league rate of about 27%
China fan - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 03:01 PM EDT (#292446) #
In his report, Gerry mentions that Pompey had two hits for Buffalo last night, but what he forgot to mention is that Pompey also had two stolen bases.  This brings him to an impressive total of 39 stolen bases this season (across three levels of the farm system).  His speed is intriguing -- he's like a Gose who can also hit and get on base.  Just taking only his AA and AAA numbers this season, his OPS is well above .800 and his OBP is around .370. 
dan gordon - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 03:28 PM EDT (#292447) #
Plus, Pompey is a significantly better base stealer than Gose. For his minor league career, Pompey has a SB% of 84.5%. Gose is only 73% in his minor league career. He is a little better so far in the big leagues at 76.7%.
PeterG - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 08:04 PM EDT (#292458) #
Pompey 3 for 3 so far tonight as Bisons lead Pawtucket 9-0 after 3. Graveman pitching..
Mike Green - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 08:13 PM EDT (#292459) #
Pawtucket is the team the Herd has to catch.  They are 2 games back (1 in the loss column).   Pillar is back in the lineup and has doubled and homered and drove in 4.  It's good that the Jay organization has given Buffalo an exciting team to watch as the playoffs approach
tercet - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 10:01 PM EDT (#292462) #
I was at the Bisons game on Thursday, and was a bit suprised by the inconsistent FB velocity from Daniel.  From what I saw on the stadium gun, he was 86-94, mostly around 88-92.  Tony LeCava was their with a group of scouts (8 by my count).  Personally I wouldn't waste a 40man on Norris yet, but looks like he will be up soon. 
One other thing that was sorta weird was Pompey and Gose, they were like ghosts too each other.  During the warmups Gose left the second Pompey came in, and never really saw them chat at all with each other.  I guess Gose is all jealous now that Pompey has caught up to him, lol
John Northey - Saturday, August 23 2014 @ 10:21 PM EDT (#292463) #
Bad game for Graveman.  He allowed 2 runs.  OK, bad only by the standards he has set.  7 IP, 9 H 2 R/ER 0 BB 1 SO.  So in 5 AAA starts he has allowed 5 runs, gone 7 innings 3 times and 6 innings the other 2 times. Walked just 3 but K'd just 15 in 33 IP. 

If his K's were higher he'd be a top prospect (ala Norris) but instead is ... well ... not sure what he is.  Super-effective in AAA and deserves a shot in 2015 at the rotation really, but odds are will be in AAA to start 2015 and be one of the first called up.
greenfrog - Sunday, August 24 2014 @ 12:31 PM EDT (#292481) #
Law recently described Graveman as a potential #5 SP. I think another commentator saw him as a potential #4.
Hodgie - Sunday, August 24 2014 @ 03:04 PM EDT (#292485) #
I have taken to ignoring prognosticators/scouts opinion of ceiling. Minor League Ball had a write-up of Norris' 13K game and the author (Dan Weigel) came away with an opinion that Norris could be a #3 starter wit improvement or #4 starter without. The very fact that Graveman and Norris could be viewed with relatively similar ceilings, albeit by different scouts is confusing.
TangledUpInBlue - Sunday, August 24 2014 @ 09:02 PM EDT (#292501) #
Hodgie, Your comment reminds me of a Baseball Prospectus podcast (Effectively Wild) from a few months ago where they were joking about this same issue while looking at Paul Goldschmidt's minor league numbers. At the time, Goldschmidt's ceiling looked to be that of a fringe major leaguer -- a far cry from being a top-5 hitter in the game. So if he could do it, they thought, you'd have to conclude that the ceiling for every minor leaguer is to be a superstar.
TangledUpInBlue - Sunday, August 24 2014 @ 09:07 PM EDT (#292502) #
Actually, now that I look at his minor league numbers, they too were pretty impressive, so it must have been at the time he was drafted (and I think they were actually referring to old scouting reports) that he looked like a fringe player in the majors.
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