Vancouver clinched the first half championship on Saturday and will be in the playoffs come September. The lower level teams seem to be the best bets for the playoffs this season. Buffalo, New Hampshire, Dunedin and Lansing haven't shown playoff form although Dunedin have a chance for the second half title if they can finish strong. Bluefield and the GCL Jays, along with Vancouver, could be playoff bound. For Vancouver this is the first time they have made the playoffs from the first half of the season, they have previously qualified from the second half. Vancouver in the playoffs could impact the Jays promotion plans, they could prefer that players stay in Vancouver to experience the playoffs rather than go to Lansing and get their heads beaten in most nights. Lansing are desperate for Justin Maese and Patrick Murphy to return and both are pitching in the GCL and getting close.
Elsewhere, Ryan Borucki had a great start to his AA career. Michael Saunders had a good weekend in AAA, as did Dwight Smith. Nate Pearson made his first start for Vancouver and pitched well. The Bats are hot for several of the affiliates.
Buffalo
Chris Rowley had another excellent start on Saturday, seven shutout innings and now he has a 2.27 ERA in AAA. In four starts Rowley has a 1.50 ERA with 18 K's in 24 innings. He has only walked four. Rowley has never been on the top 30 lists and has moved up the system while staying mostly under the radar. So what do we make of him? I remember talking to a scout about Shaun Marcum many years ago. We had just watched Marcum shut down a strong AAA team with his 86 mph stuff. I said to the scout can that pitching work in the major leagues? His answer was "the hitters let you know". The hitters facing Rowley are letting us know and so far they are letting us know that Rowley can pitch well against them. Hitters tend to have a pedigree, they consistently build on their performance from level to level. Pitchers are different, they can learn a new pitch or learn how to better command their stuff. And add to that, that pitching scouting is obsessed with speed. Pitchers who don't have plus velocity but who can control their arsenal tend to get overlooked. Recent Blue Jay pitchers Casey Lawrence and Austen Bibens-Dirkx made the major leagues without ever being on top 30 lists. If Rowley continues pitching well in Buffalo he has to get a call-up in September.
The Bisons bats came alive over the weekend scoring 25 runs. Michael Saunders had been struggling in AAA and a week ago his batting average was down to .120. In the last week he hit in all five games he played including going 5-8 in two weekend games. Saunders was removed mid way through Sundays game. Four of the five hits were for extra bases. Dwight Smith Jr. also has a hot bat. In three games Smith was 6-13 with a home run in both Saturdays and Sundays games. Rowdy Tellez had two multi-hit games. Roemon Fields was 4-12.
New Hampshire
The Fisher Cats started Sean Reid-Foley, Conner Greene and Ryan Borucki over the weekend and the results were good, bad and very good. Borucki, in his AA debut, threw seven shutout innings with just two hits allowed. He walked two, struck out four, and had a 12-1 ground ball out/fly ball out ratio. SRF was impressive in a different way, he had 12 K's in 6.2 innings. SRF gave up a run on four hits. Greene pitched just one inning facing nine hitters. He threw 38 pitches and was pulled after the inning. He walked two, gave up three hits and made a throwing error.
Danny Jansen continues to roll, he was 4-8 with a double in two games. Anthony Alford had a hit in each of the three games. Lourdes Gurriel has just two hits in ten at-bats, however he only struck out once. Tim Lopes was the hottest hitter of the weekend going 5-11.
Dunedin
Dunedin won all three games, two via shutouts. On Friday Conor Fisk pitched eight shutout innings with one hit allowed. Fisk's ERA and WHIP are average for the FSL. His worst month of the season was June, his best has been July. Is that just the ups and downs of a season or has Fisk learned something new? As an aside one of the trickiest parts of these minor league updates is getting the spelling of Conor right. There are at least three variants in the system. Kender Villegas, a free agent signing in the off-season, pitched six shutout innings on Sunday.
Darrell Ceciliani played all three games but was limited to three at-bats in each game. Bo Bichette was 4-13, Vlad Jr was 2-10 with a walk. He is still getting used to high A. Although is batting average is just .256 he has six walks and six strikeouts in 35 at-bats. Max Pentecost was 3-3, all doubles, on Sunday. Connor Panas had four hits, including a home run.
Lansing
Lansing are really suffering right now. The conceded 34 runs in the three games. There were eleven pitcher appearances over the weekend, eight of them were scored upon.
There is not much to report on the hitting side. Josh Palacios had four hits over three games. Mitch Nay had three hits in two games including a three run home run. Most of the other hitters picked up some hits but nothing of note.
Vancouver
Nate Pearson started on Sunday and pitched two innings getting seven outs. His only blemish was two wild pitches, one of which let the hitter reach on a strikeout. Reportedly he was hitting 100 mph with his fastball. Vancouver reached the playoffs with a 7-6 win on Saturday. The two shortstops, Kevin Vicuna and Logan Warmoth each had three hits in that game.
Vancouver's bats were on fire all weekend. Warmoth played two games and had three hits in each. He is hitting .438. Vicuna was 5-13. Reggie Pruitt played two full games and pinch hit and picked up five hits. Pruitt hit .102 in June and now is over .260 in July...small steps. Kacy Clemens played twice and was 2-5 in each game. One hit was a home run.
While the hitters were scoring, the pitchers were giving some of them back. The conceded six runs in the first two games, just three in the final game. Brody Rodning was the best of the bunch, other than Pearson, with five K's in four innings.
Bluefield
The Bluefield bats are hot too. They racked up double digits in hits in each of their three weekend games. The multi hit games were shared, each of the following hitters had a multi hit game: Ryan Noda; Tanner Kirwer; Brandon Grudzielanek; Reilly Johnson; Mc Gregory Contreras; Jesus Navarro; Chavez Young; Kevin Smith; Freddy Rodriguez; Francisco Rodriguez; and Jesus Severino. That's eleven hitters with a multi hit game and only Noda did it twice. Yorman Rodriguez had one hit in each game
Most of the pitching was unremarkable. Jordan Barrett, selected in the 18th round this year, started on Saturday and pitched three hitless innings. However he did hit two batters back to back.
GCL Blue Jays
The Jays essentially played a doubleheader on Saturday. They scored 13 runs in the first game and then were shutout in the second game. The starter in game one, Jol Concepcion walked seven in three innings but didn't give up a run. Rehabbing Patrick Murphy racked up six K's in three innings. Game two starter, Maverik Buffo, also had six K's in three innings. Buffo was a 34th round pick this year out of BYU.
Another rehabber Reece McGuire had three hits in game one but he was out-shined by 18 year old Otto Lopez who had three hits and was a home run short of the cycle. Lopez drove in four runs. In game two Luis De Los Santos had two hits.
Three Stars
Third Star - Kender Villegas
Second Star - Max Pentecost
First Star - Ryan Borucki
