BUFFALO 8 @ Pawtucket 3
The Bisons are the talk of the town in Buffalo, having put themselves in first place with a win in Pawtucket. While most of the prospect capital was on the Red Sox side, the AAAA guys from Buffalo had the standout performances. Chris Colabello was 4-5 with a HR and 4 RBIs. Andy Wilkins was 1-2 with 3 walks. Steve Delabar and Bobby Korecky pitched a clean inning each. All 3 Red Sox runs came off starter Randy Wolf. Wolf went 6 innings and struck out 5.
Steven Wright started for Pawtucket and despite striking out 10, he gave up 6 runs, 5 earned. Red Sox prospect sweetheart Blake Swihart was 0-4.
New Hampshire 1 @ TRENTON 2
Not a lot to like here if you’re the type who enjoys high fives. Jake Fox’s third home run was the only time a Fisher Cat celebrated touching home plate. The defense undoubtedly slapped hands on the 4 double plays they turned, which was enough to keep things close, but Casey Lawrence was unable to pitch a shutout which was necessary to win. Dwight Smith Jr. played LF and went 1-3 with a walk. A.J. Jiminez (0-4) sports a .095 average. It is interesting (ish) to note that Ryan Schimpf played RF. Perhaps he, like draft mate Ryan Goins, is also trying to become a super utility player.
Smith has taken to AA ball well, slashing .321/.357/.434 through 13 games. He’s walked 3 times vs. 4 strikeouts in 56 plate appearances. At 22 years old, he’s probably not that far away from getting a chance with the Blue Jays. A LH bat with his contact rate and plate discipline would be very valuable to the parent club.
Dunedin 3 @ DAYTONA 7
*Krusty the Klown voice* Oiiiiiii. Sorry kids. This’ll be quick I promise.
The Baby Jays didn’t walk once, struck out 11 times, and had only 3 hits. They were able to plate 3 runs aided by Daytona’s 4 errors, but there’s not a lot of prospecty stuff to like. 2014 Van C’s fan fave Roemon Fields (1-4, SB) doubled, Michael Saunders (0-4) played the whole game in LF, Alberto Tirado didn’t allow any runs in his inning and a third, but walked two. Luis Santos started and gave up 2 HRs in his 2.2 innings.
FORT WAYNE 9 @ Lansing 4
A Fort Wayne TinCap could be forgiven if he misunderstood the pitching probables with the strategy for last night’s game in Lansing. “Chase Mallard” was the Lugnut starter, and “chase Mallard” is what the TinCaps did. 1701 braved the snow and 3 degree weather to watch the away team score 5 runs in the 3.1 innings Mallard pitched. Though the Lansing 9 fought back to make it a 5-4 game after 5 innings, the TinCaps just wouldn’t stop hitting. Every hitter in the order had at least one hit, with all but the 7-8 hitters having multiple hits. The TinCaps scored 9 runs on 19 hits.
Despite only mustering 5 hits and spending most of the night picking up the ball and throwing it back to the pitcher, there were some good things in the boxscore. Rowdy Tellez (1-3, BB) doubled for the third time this young season. DJ Davis was 1-3 and reached on a HBP, but more importantly for him had no strikeouts (he’s only striking out 27% of the time this year). Although Davis did make his first error of the year, so curb your enthusiasm. Also, shameless self promoter Anthony Alford (1-5, 2B) retweeted this [note: when I’m more comfortable I’ll start using the wonders of HTML to embed tweets- for now just close your eyes and imagine- but don’t close your eyes, you’ll need those.] “Add this to the legend of Anthony Alford: scoring from second base on a sacrifice fly in the snow.”
3 Stars
3rd star: Dwight Smith Jr. (1-3, 2B, BB), New Hampshire
2nd star: Andy Wilkins (1-2, 2R, 3 BB), Buffalo
1st star: Chris Colabello (4-5, HR, 4 RBI), Buffalo
