Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Almost Perfect and Home Runs

Jordan Romano was working on a no hitter through six innings and then pulled himself from the game with a cramp. The no hitter went bye bye in the eighth with a home run. Vlad Jr. was almost perfect himself, he was 4-4 before grounding out in his last at bat. Cavan Biggio homered. Buffalo had a nice win thanks to a run in the ninth. Devon Travis homered. Dunedin were poor at both ends while the Lugnut juggernaut kept going. Kevin Smith and Brock Lundquist homered.

Buffalo

The Bisons won 5-4 off a ninth inning tie breaking run. Roemon Fields walked, stole second and continued to third on a throwing error, and scored on a sac fly from Dalton Pompey. The Bisons had jumped out to a 3-0 lead due, in part, to a two run home run by Devon Travis, his first of the season in AAA. The Bisons had just seven hits, Rowdy Tellez had two. Travis' average is still just .204, he is still trying to get back in the groove. Lourdes Gurriel Jr and Anthony Alford were 0-4 each, Pompey was 1-3 with a sac fly.

Chris Rowley started but just went four innings with four runs allowed. Three relievers finished up with Taylor Gurrieri being the best.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire won 7-1, had a no-hitter until the eighth and had 'em all the way. Vlad Jr was 4-5 with a home run and two doubles. Cavan Biggio hit his 12th home run, plus a single, and in a normal year would be leading the team with his .313 average. Bo didn't have a hit but walked and had a sac fly. Jonathan Davis had two hits, a double and a triple, and is playing very well in May. His average for May is .328 with an .880 OPS. He is flying under the radar of the big three. Andrew Guillotte also had two hits.

Jordan Romano pitched six shutout, hitless, innings, two walks, five K's. Romano ran his record to 7-0 and lowered his ERA to 1.94. Romano had to come out of the game with what he called a cramp. Coming into 2018 there was speculation as to whether Romano was a starter or destined for the bullpen. The big issue was how Romano handled left handers. This season right handers are hitting .092 off him and lefties .184. However Romano was walked 14 lefties versus 6 righties in a similar amount of at-bats. While he is limiting lefties he looks like he is cautious around them. As his confidence grows the walks should come down.

Dunedin

Dunedin were well beaten 4-0. They had just four hits, all singles, Josh Palacios had two.

Angel Perdomo went four innings, threw 80 pitches, and had five hits and three walks allowed. Perdomo remains a work in process.

Lansing

Eight wins in a row for the Lugnuts. A couple of five run innings led to a 12-2 win. Brock Lundquist got the party started with a two run home run in the second inning. It was his eighth homer and he added a single. The ubiquitous Kevin Smith hit his sixth home run and added a double that was really a defensive mistake. Also joining the two hit club were Norberto Obeso and Yeltsin Gudino. In case you didn't see it Reggie Pruitt has gone on the DL after a wall collision and Brandon Polizzi has been called up from extended.

Yennsy Diaz pitched six innings, five hits, two walks, three K's. Dany Jimenez seems to be getting back on track, he had two good innings.

3 Stars

3rd star: Jonathan Davis

2nd star: Jordan Romano

1st star: Vlad

Boxes

Posted by Gerry on Wednesday, May 16 2018 @ 10:27 PM EDT.

Almost Perfect and Home Runs | 21 comments | Create New Account

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

uglyone - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 10:07 AM EDT (#358059) #

I read somewhere that we may have just gained an extra year of service time for Devon Travis?

can anyone confirm?

James W - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 10:28 AM EDT (#358061) #

Travis came into the year with exactly 3 years of service. He was optioned on the 29th of April. If they call him up right now and he remains on the roster, I think he would have 168 service days this year (if I'm off on this, it's on the high side - I counted April 29 and May 17 in my calculation), short of the 172 required for a full year of service. So yes, confirmed.

uglyone - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 10:31 AM EDT (#358062) #

thank you good sir!

bpoz - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 11:47 AM EDT (#358067) #

I suppose we each have our own SSS. Is 8 starts for a SP and 150 ABs for a hitter mean the SSS is over?

uglyone - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 11:57 AM EDT (#358069) #

it's still small sample, but enough to start taking the numbers seriously, imo.

bpoz - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 12:36 PM EDT (#358072) #

Thanks UO. I will hold back my excitement or I will set myself up for disappointment.

Richard S.S. - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 01:31 PM EDT (#358073) #

Are Valdy and Bo being promoted to AAA?

John Northey - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 01:40 PM EDT (#358074) #

I suspect they won't be promoted until July 1st - basically half a year in AA and then half a year in AAA to get them set for a potential ML call-up early in 2019 (once their service clocks are pushed back a year).

Gerry - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 02:41 PM EDT (#358076) #

There is no guarantee Bo will be promoted this year. They are not a package deal.

uglyone - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 02:48 PM EDT (#358077) #

would not be surprised to see Vladdy and Biggio bumped up within weeks, maybe days.

hypobole - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 03:29 PM EDT (#358078) #

Something from Longerhagen's chat today

Anon
Which teams treat their players best in terms of pay/benefits? Does it have a positive impact on development?

Eric A Longenhagen
They all do an insufficient job. Some put more into it than others (Toronto does okay, Cubs, Dbacks, Seattle is trying new things) but mostly all the kids are underpaid.

So we're the best of a bad lot. Yay?

hypobole - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 03:35 PM EDT (#358080) #

And in light of the KLaw report on Biggio

Bob
3:22 So is Cavan Biggio becoming a top 100 guy or at least top Jays prospect. Many can only scout the stat line, what does he look like in person?

Eric A Longenhagen
3:22 Playable power, probably not a 2B

Mike Green - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 03:36 PM EDT (#358081) #

So we're the best of a bad lot. Yay?

So we're the best of a bad lot. Eh?

scottt - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 05:59 PM EDT (#358086) #

probably not a 2B

I don't know about that.

Most of the good players play short-stop at HS and college.
Biggio played 2B which is where I would put someone who doesn't have a good arm.
However, Biggio's coach was his father who knows the fundamentals of playing second base.
Biggio won the ABCA/Rawlings Gold Glove award at Notre Dame in 2015.

Biggio was drafted in the 5th round, which isn't that low.
The Blue Jays director of amateur scouting, Brian Parker called him a 2-way player.
"we like him as a player and a guy that can play both ways offense and defense"

He's a relatively big guy, but he moves well and is an above average runner.

ayjackson - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 06:04 PM EDT (#358087) #

Longenhagen probably read Law's piece.

rabbit - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 07:45 PM EDT (#358088) #

I'm heading down to New Hampshire this weekend to catch a few AA games before Vlad gets the call. If anybody's in the area and wants to grab a beer, talk some baseball, give me a shout.

cybercavalier - Thursday, May 17 2018 @ 11:11 PM EDT (#358091) #

I think the link to the boxscores shall be dated May the 16th. FYI, former Jays Travis Snider, Gustavo Pierre and A J Jimenez are playing in the independent baseball league, the American Association. In fact, Pierre and Jimenez are teammates.

Jonny German - Friday, May 18 2018 @ 08:09 AM EDT (#358094) #

Bed Badler of Baseball America was on the Artificial Turf Wars podcast (highly recommended BTW). He feels like Vlad could potentially stick at 3rd base early in his career and then move to 1st in his mid 20s. He emphasized how little he's played the position - both being only 19 and having been an outfielder until he was drafted.

He was quite positive about Bo's defence - here's what he said:

I think more than anything what's impressed me this year with him is his defence. I mean, certainly coming out of high school a couple years ago a lot of questions on, not even questions but more like, was he going to play third base or second base. And then last year he improved his defence to the point where he had more people thinking "Oh, maybe he could play shortstop". Watching him play all this year, and I know he put a ton of work into it over the offseason, he looks like a shortstop to me. I don't really have much doubt about his ability to stick at that position. Some of it's going to be circumstantial, where if you happen to have say Adeiny Hechavarria or Andrelton Simmons or some spectactular defensive shortstop already on the club, alright well he's not going to play there. You know, Manny Machado, Alex Bregman, all these guys probably could play shortstop at the major league level but have played other positions just due to circumstance. But footwork, reads off the bat, he gets very good reactions, ranges well up the middle, turns double plays well, uses his arm effectively. I've really been impressed with the strides that he's made defensively at shortstop.

hypobole - Saturday, May 19 2018 @ 09:49 AM EDT (#358151) #

Badler made one point about promoting hitters from AA to AAA that I don't remember hearing before (I may have, but don't remember), and that it's less about the quality of SP's they face, more about the reliever quality.

Almost all AA relievers are org guys, but with teams rotating optionable relievers between the majors and AAA, the quality difference of relief pitching hitters face is much greater in AAA than AA, compared to the quality difference between AA and AAA starters.

bpoz - Saturday, May 19 2018 @ 11:10 AM EDT (#358155) #

Makes perfect sense about the AAA relievers hypobole.

Gerry - Saturday, May 19 2018 @ 01:53 PM EDT (#358162) #

Dalton Pompey has come out of todays game after one at bat.

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