Nate Pearson surrendered five runs today and couldn't complete five innings. In consecutive "scheduled for five inning" starts, he has given up seven hits. This is not the Pearson we signed up for! We don't know what Pearson is working on, whether he is trialing some new grips, or approaches, and therefore it's hard to pass judgement on what is going on. I am confident he will return to normal results in short order. Pearson is not he only player to panic over. Kevin Smith is hitting .170, that is made up of .200 in April and .140 in May. He struck out 25 times in April and 31 times in May. Whatever he is trying doesn't seem to be working. At some point the Jays might have to look at a drop down to Dunedin to get his confidence back.
On the field, the top two teams lost easily although Forrest Wall and Riley Adams just keep hitting. Dunedin and Lansing won easily, Griffin Conine had a big day including two home runs. Another high pick, Logan Warmoth also hit well.
Syracuse 9 Buffalo 2
Ryan Feierabend is back from Toronto and reportedly under orders to throw the knuckleball more. That didn't work too well on Thursday, he threw 69 pitches, just 37 for strikes. In total he was charged with six runs on six hits and four walks. William Ouelette, who has been pitching well, gave up three runs.
The Bisons had only six hits, Pat Cantwell had two. Anthony Alford and Socrates Brito had a hit each to keep their hottish runs going. Teoscar Hernandez and Billy McKinney were both oh-fer as they haven't found their hits in AAA yet.
New Hampshire 1 Harrisburg 5
Nate Pearson was not his fearless self, he was charged with five runs and didn't complete his five innings. On the opposite side, Willy Ortiz, who entered the game with a 7.71 ERA, pitched 3.1 shutout innings with just one hit allowed.
Two players have been delivering most of the hits for NH over the last week, Forrest Wall and Riley Adams. Wall was 3-4 and has an 11 game hitting streak. In six of those eleven games he has had multiple hits. He is now hitting over .300 and is controlling the strikezone well. He just doesn't have much power, just three home runs through a third of the season. Adams also had three hits and he has a nine game hitting streak, with five multiple hit games. Adams too has moved his BA over .300. Adams doesn't walk much, and strikes out around 40% of the time in AA, but he is doing well for a 22 year old. His strike zone control was better in Dunedin so he does have the ability to improve that aspect. Nash Knight had a double and a triple and drove in the only run.
Tampa 4 Dunedin 12
Dunedin scored in each of the first six innings and went on to score 12 runs on 16 hits. Logan Warmoth had the three hardest parts of the cycle, he just couldn't get the single. He scored three and drove in two. Cal Stevenson keeps moving up his average, he was 3-5. His batting average for May is over .300 and his May OPS is over 800. Ronny Brito who came over in the Russell Martin trade with Andrew Sopko was 2-4.
Justin Dillon shut out the Yankees over five innings. Brito, who played third base, made two errors leading to three unearned runs.
Lansing 9 Dayton 4
Griffin Conine played his second game of the season and went 4-5 with two home runs and two doubles. Conine, a left handed hitter, hit his doubles and home runs to left field. Reggie Pruitt had three hits. Ryan Gold had two hits, one a home run, and three RBI. Gabriel Moreno was hit in the helmet by a pitch and had to leave the game.
Troy Watson had his best start of the season, five innings, two unearned runs. Otto Lopez made two more errors at short, thats 14 for him so far. Josh Hiatt followed with three shutout innings.
3 Stars
3rd star: Cal Stevenson
2nd star: Logan Warmoth
1st star: Griffin Conine
