Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Mr. Smith Goes Downtown, Twice

Its your abbreviated holiday weekend minor league update. Dwight Smith Jr has been red hot in May. Hos OPS has gone from .391 in April to 1.010 in May. Tayler Saucedo and Wade LeBlanc pitched well and picked up the second and third stars.

Pawtucket 1 Buffalo 2

Buffalo had three of their seven hits in the bottom of the ninth for a walk off win. The winning hit was a single by Casey Kotchman. Wade LeBlanc pitched seven strong innings, the only run was unearned. Aaron Loup pitched an inning as did Ryan Tepera.

The Bisons lost on Saturday, Scott Diamond gave up five runs. Jesus Montero homered and Andy Burns had two hits.

Buffalo also had a walk off win on Friday, this time Jio Mier delivered the walk off hit. Junior Lake had three hits. Drew Hutchison pitched a two hitter over seven innings. Bo Schulz got roughed up for four runs.

Hartford 7 New Hampshire 13

Sixteen hits for the good guys. Dwight Smith had three with two home runs. His bat is red hot in May. Ian Parmley and Jon Berti also had three hits. Jeremy Gabryszwski was hit around a bit.

The Fisher Cats lost on Saturday. Dwight Smith had two more hits. Jorge Flores had two doubles.

Hartford won in ten innings on Friday. Daniel Schlereth was the loser. Rowdy Tellez had three hits including a home run.

Dunedin 2 Bradenton 8

Francisco Rios started this game and with 8 allowed, that gets an uh-oh. But Rios was OK although he did take the loss. He gave up three runs over seven innings with seven K's. Rios's "problem" was nine hits in his seven innings. Six of the hits were ground balls and one a bunt so Rios may have been a BABIP victim. Brad Allen took the loss. Richard Urena hit a home run.

Dunedin won on Saturday behind six shutout innings from new starter Chris Rowley. Adonys Cardona gave up a run. Anthony Alford had three hits, Dickie Thon homered.

On Friday the Jays lost via a walk off wild pitch, thrown by Carlos Ramirez. Conner Greene had started, went five and gave up a run. He did walk four. Ryan McBroom hit a home run.

Lansing 4 Great Lakes 3 - 10 innings

A Max Pentecost sac fly in the tenth won the game for the Lugnuts. Juan Kelly and Gunnar Heidt had two hits. Tayler Saucedo pitched six innings of one hit ball. An error and two unearned runs let Great Lakes back in the game.

Lansing lost on Saturday. Sean Reid Foley had a tough start, five runs, six hits and four walks in 4.2 innings. Starlyn Suriel followed and pitched 3.1 shutout innings. Two hits for Andrew Guillotte, Max Pentecost and Gunnar Heidt.

Lansing played a double header on Friday. Ryan Borucki took the loss in game one although three of his six runs allowed were unearned. Josh Almonte homered. In the nightcap Patrick Murphy made his first start in years. He went three innings and just gave up an unearned run. Juan Kelly had three RBI on two hits, including a triple.

3 Stars

3rd star: Wade LeBlanc

2nd star: Tayler Saucedo

1st star: Dwight Smith

Boxes

Posted by Gerry on Monday, May 23 2016 @ 09:15 AM EDT.

Mr. Smith Goes Downtown, Twice | 18 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

ramone - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 11:35 AM EDT (#323511) #

The Lugnuts game is on milb.tv, Harris is pitching and looks great. I tweeted it out as well, but his fastball looks far better than I thought it would, I think all of his K's so far have been with it. The Loons broadcast has mentioned it being 96 mph once, which seems high for him, but the minor league guns aren't that trust worthy so I've been told.

jerjapan - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 11:48 AM EDT (#323512) #

Anyone with any thoughts on Patrick Murphy? a 2013 3rd rounder out of HS who got a half million bonus, he pitched 4 innings in 2014 and 5 this year.

According to this article, he's thrilled to be out of Dunedin:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-prospect-murphy-hopes-to-get-injury-plagued-career-back-on-track/

Ten baserunners of 7 IPs for Rios is nothing to worry about IMO. He's been great this year and has never been promoted mid-season before. If that start counts as a stumble, kid could be pretty good.

Wade Leblanc is really doing his best Randy Wolf for the Bisons this year.

Gerry - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 11:53 AM EDT (#323513) #

Murphy was a high draft pick but he has missed so much time that he needs to have a healthy year before we start looking at him as a serious prospect. He also might have an innings limit this year due to his not pitching for a couple of years.

With all the relievers coming off rehab David Aardsma was bumped off the Bisons roster last week. He has now opted to become a free agent.

jerjapan - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 12:39 PM EDT (#323514) #

Nice to hear about Harris Ramone - his performance -- and the whole Lansing rotation - has been a bright spot during a down year for the farm.

Gerry, I assume you are talking about Schultz when you mention rehabbing relievers - anyone else that I'm forgetting? Where is blake mcfarland?

China fan - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 12:44 PM EDT (#323515) #

Jon Harris went 7 innings today, allowing only 3 hits and 1 walk. And he allowed no runs, yet again. He struck out 11 hitters. He hasn't allowed an earned run in his past 32 innings, and his ERA is down to 0.83.

It's time to promote him to Dunedin, surely?

China fan - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 12:53 PM EDT (#323516) #

finch - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 12:58 PM EDT (#323517) #

Gerry,

Any word on how Guerrero Jr is doing in EST?

Mike Green - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 01:15 PM EDT (#323518) #

ramone, how did Harris' other pitches look? He is 22 years old, and I wonder about maybe trying the Chris Sale approach with him- giving him a few starts in Dunedin and then promoting him to the major league bullpen for at least 1/2 a year and maybe a year and a half.

Here is an article from today's Globe and Mail on parenting and baseball from a single mom's perspective. I found it to be perfect for a holiday weekend. One quibble: beer and sushi at a Vancouver Canadians game? For me, it's a straightforward proposition- sushi goes with sake, izakaya goes with beer. Am I being too doctrinaire?

finch - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 01:27 PM EDT (#323519) #

Couldn't agree w/ you more Mike Green. Sake w/ sushi and beer w/ izakaya!

ramone - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 01:30 PM EDT (#323520) #

He started using his curveball and changeup far more as the game went on. The curve to me looked great, could throw it for strikes or out of the zone when needed. Not sure how the changeup was, it was hard to tell with the mph not being posted on the broadcast. The hitters in single A clearly struggled with his curve today.

jerjapan - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 01:42 PM EDT (#323521) #

Does anyone think Wade LeBlanc should be considered for the Jays bullpen? He's having an excellent season, his BB rate is only 1.9 per 9 innings, and he has lots of major-league experience. (And he's 8 years younger than Randy Wolf, so we can probably dispel that particular comparison.)

To quote Homer Simpson, "no way".

The Wolf comp is perfect! Both AAAA talents, hittable but with excellent control. LeBlanc has literally never been good in the bigs, even pitching in SD, and he's 31 so I don't see how being younger than Wolf is relevant. I can think of literally a dozen guys in AAA / AA I'd rather give innings to over Leblanc, and one of them is Chad Jenkins. If you are behind Chad Jenkins on the depth chart, you are officially buried.

scottt - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 02:44 PM EDT (#323526) #

Isn't an izakaya a pub in which they serve sake and beer along with sushis and other appetizers?

jerjapan - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 03:33 PM EDT (#323530) #

In my years in Tokyo, I ate the heck out of a lot of sushi while drinking the heck out of a lot of sake and beer at a lot of izakayas. They are indeed pubs with loads of food options - a tapas restaraunt with a greater focus on drinking?

Tons of Japanese people don't even like sake, but I can't recall meeting anyone who didn't like sushi.

Dewey - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 05:02 PM EDT (#323532) #

LeBlanc has literally never been good in the bigs, even pitching in SD, and he's 31 so I don't see how being younger than Wolf is relevant. I can think of literally a dozen guys . . .

Been enjoying your posts recently, jerjapan; but I�ve got to call you for overuse/misuse of a silly word: �literally�. When you figure out just what you mean by it, let me know. And then use a better word. Or I�ll quote Homer Simpson at you.

cybercavalier - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 05:12 PM EDT (#323533) #

http://www.battersbox.ca/comment.php?mode=view&cid=323521

May I know how can you make the comparison ? For example, what source or information was the assessment based on ?

jerjapan - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 06:09 PM EDT (#323535) #

I�ve got to call you for overuse/misuse of a silly word: �literally�. When you figure out just what you mean by it, let me know. And then use a better word. Or I�ll quote Homer Simpson at you.

Mea culpa Dewey - I've encountered frustration around the use of the word 'literally', but I don't see how I'm using it wrongly or why it qualifies as a silly word. I do believe my use of it is thus:

'informal used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true'.

But I am genuinely interested in both your idea of a better word AND the Homer Simpson quote.

Dewey - Monday, May 23 2016 @ 10:15 PM EDT (#323551) #

Well, it�s just a weasel word, isn�t it? Meaningless filler. False authority. What precisely does it mean anyway? If you removed it from each of the sentences, would anything be lost? Don't think so. Does something being �literally true� [your example -- and I suspect you may simply be baiting me there] mean anything different from it being �true�? Not to me. The better word in this case is no word at all. No?

As for Homer, it was an idle threat. I can�t summon a sufficiently appropriate quote to throw at you just now. Maybe some other time.

Cheers.

Dewey - Tuesday, May 24 2016 @ 07:15 PM EDT (#323590) #

[next day] I just listened to an interview with the lawyer who is
representing Tony Gwynn�s family in their suit against the makers of
smokeless tobacco --�dip�, as it�s called. He made some very good
points, but kept saying �emanate� (to emit, send forth) when the word he
clearly meant is �emulate� (to copy or imitate). He wanted to use a
word that had a certain formal/official-sounding cachet, but didn�t
trouble to look it up. This is just the sort of misuse that I have
cited here on Da Box several times. Doesn�t really have terribly
serious consequences here, of course; but in a case covered extensively
by national media outlets in the U.S. and Canada, this sort of verbal
faux pas undercuts the lawyer�s credibility; and possibly makes us
wonder what else he might have got wrong. Can�t imagine a well-educated
judge (such figures must surely exist?) would be very favourably
impressed by the slip. If I was a member of the Gwynn family, I�d ask
the lawyer to get it right, pronto. (Appropriately enough, his name I
believe was Casey.) Language does matter.

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