Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Espino Goes Deep, Repeatedly

Sebastian Espino hit three home runs for Vancouver as they romped to a win. They hit six home runs. One of them was by Orelvis Martinez who had seen his average dip below .200. Another player who had some recent struggles was Kevin Smith who came back after a day off with four hits on Sunday. With Casey Lawrence throwing blanks it was an easy win for the Bisons. New Hampshire were down early and lost. Dunedin had the day off.

Rochester 1 Buffalo 7

New Hampshire 5 Harrisburg 11

Vancouver 11 Everett 3

Dunedin - day off

This is what I noted from yesterday's games.

Kevin Smith had been scuffling and so he got a day off on Saturday. That paid off on Sunday when Smith went 4-5 with two doubles, two runs scored and four RBI. Tyler White had three hits and Josh Palacios two.

Casey Lawrence dominated, six shutout innings, no walks, seven strikeouts. The major leaguer Tim Mayza gave up a solo home run for the only Rochester runs. Cavan Biggio struck out three times and walked twice.

Reilly Hovis got rocked for ten hits and seven runs in 4.2 innings. Brandon Eisert also had a game to forget, four runs in an inning. Adrian Hernandez mopped up but had two more K's in an inning. That's 12 K's in 7 AA innings. His "major league ready change-up" is still working in AA.

Vinny Capra and Nick Podkul each homered and had two hits. Tanner Kirwer went 2-4 and drove in two. Jordan Groshans was 0-3 and is now .209 for August.

Adam Kloffenstein had an excellent start. He only pitched five innings but a solo home run was the only run he allowed. His line was 5 3 1 1 3 4. Kloff's last two starts of July were rough but he has been better in August.

The C's scored two in the fourth with a two run home run by Sebastian Espino. Espino homered again in the seventh. And to top it off he homered again in the ninth, this time off a normal third baseman. In between Rafael Lantigua scored twice, once on an error and another on a triple by Tanner Morris. Lantigua and Zac Cook also homered in the ninth off the third baseman. In the eighth M homered, his fourth. Martinez was 3-4 on the day to get his average back over .200. He had been scuffling.

With a tropical storm approaching, Dunedin advanced their Sunday game to Saturday and played a doubleheader yesterday.

Three Stars

Third Star - Casey Lawrence

Second Star - Kevin Smith

First Star - Sebastian Espino

Boxes

Posted by Gerry on Sunday, August 15 2021 @ 09:39 PM EDT.

Espino Goes Deep, Repeatedly | 15 comments | Create New Account

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

Jonny German - Monday, August 16 2021 @ 05:09 AM EDT (#405053) #

The minor league phases of the Rule 5 draft remain a mystery to me. I did some googling this morning trying to figure it out as it's relevant to Espino. The Jays acquired him in the minor league Rule 5 from the Mets last year. If he's eligible for that again this year he's a lock to be claimed. If he's only eligible for the major league portion it's more of a toss-up as to whether a team will want to give him a shot on the end of their bench.

scottt - Monday, August 16 2021 @ 09:08 AM EDT (#405058) #

The minor league phase. There has been only 1 since 2016.
Players who have been in the system for more than 4 or 5 years depending on their baseball age at the time of signing can be selected in either draft unless on a reserve list.
The MLB reserve list is what we call the 40 roster.
AAA has its own reserve list which I believe is limited to 38.

So, Espino would probably still be on the Jays AAA reserve list--unless they didn't think so highly of him anymore or they ran out of space--but he would be eligible for the MLB phase unless added to the 40 roster in December.

Ducey - Monday, August 16 2021 @ 12:49 PM EDT (#405070) #

And to top it off he homered again in the ninth, this time off a normal third baseman. That is noteworthy. Most third basement seem a little abnormal. Nice work by someone in nabbing Espinal. Nothing in his prior numbers pointed to a breakout. I guess he could be a flash in the pan but has decent size at 6'2" and could grow into more power.

John Northey - Monday, August 16 2021 @ 01:13 PM EDT (#405073) #

The minor league rule 5 has been around a LOT longer than 2016. Mauro "Goose" Gozzo was acquired that way from KC before the 1989 season. He was a key part of that 1989 pennant winner - coming up and winning 4 in a row in his first 4 games to help a team that was having issues keep pushing along (won division by 2 over Baltimore). He was a fast fan favorite but after those first 4 games was pretty much ignored. 5 days until his 5th game (allowed 4 runs in a 8-2 loss), 5 days until used again (3 runs in 2 2/3), 3 days and 1 shutout inning, then 12 days (3 runs 1 2/3), and 10 more days off before allowed to finish off the last regular season game (got the loss, blowing a lead giving up 5 in 2 innings), but clearly the team didn't care as they already clinched the division thus used Ward for a warmup inning in the 7th - funny looking at the box score I see the O's finished with Jose Bautista pitching, no - not that one :)

John Northey - Monday, August 16 2021 @ 01:18 PM EDT (#405074) #

Sebastian Espino is interesting. Started out in the Mets organization at 17, 763 OPS that year, 696 at 18, 635 at 19, all in the rookie leagues. Then 2020 hit, and the Jays grabbed him for this year and he is hitting 310/368/526 between A/A+. Used at 3B/LF by the Jays, SS/2B by the Mets. Wonder if he was pushed too hard on defense at SS/2B and it hurt his hitting (taking bad plays to his at bats). 46 errors in 109 games at SS suggests that wasn't the right spot for him. It'd be nice if he develops - can always use more prospects.

bpoz - Monday, August 16 2021 @ 01:27 PM EDT (#405076) #

Sean Nolin, Connor Greene and Hutch pitching in the Majors just shows that it may take a while to get to the show.

They are nothing great. I know that. Still is nice.

scottt - Monday, August 16 2021 @ 01:32 PM EDT (#405078) #

Obviously. How could they reduce it to only one phase if doesn't exist?

So as I said, the Jays can protect up to 40 players from the MLB phase and up to another 38 players from the minor league phase.

Spifficus - Monday, August 16 2021 @ 09:56 PM EDT (#405091) #

OH! Wow, I was misreading that as the minor league phase has only happened once since 2016. That was weird (and thankfully a misread). You mean that in addition to the MLB portion of the rule 5 draft with its requirements to be on the MLB roster, there used to be 2 minor league phases to the rule 5 draft - the AAA phase and the AA phase (2 separate lists) - but those have been reduced to just the AAA phase since 2016.

At first, I thought I was in Crazyville, but instead I just need glasses.

92-93 - Tuesday, August 17 2021 @ 01:28 AM EDT (#405093) #

Otto Lopez has been called up. Hopefully they are dropping the 9th RP and it�s not an ominous sign about Bichette or Springer.

scottt - Tuesday, August 17 2021 @ 07:25 AM EDT (#405096) #

I see the confusion.

It's the "minor league phase" not the "minor league phases" as it's been reduced to only one minor league phase per Rule 5 draft since 2016.

That should be clear enough now.

uglyone - Tuesday, August 17 2021 @ 10:11 AM EDT (#405101) #

Serious Otto made it all the way up?

Awesome.

(I'm a skeptic but I've the kid).

hypobole - Tuesday, August 17 2021 @ 02:03 PM EDT (#405109) #

Yaifer Perdomo turned 20 yesterday and had belated party this afternoon
4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 11 K.

I hardly know any of the young Latino pitchers. Whenever I see someone has a good line I bring up their page. But before I do, I guess their height as 5'10". I seem to guess right more often than not.

85bluejay - Tuesday, August 17 2021 @ 02:22 PM EDT (#405110) #

I think the Height and weight listed are probably from when the prospect signed - many IFA sign at 16-18 Y.O and so may have a growth spurt in them.

hypobole - Tuesday, August 17 2021 @ 02:37 PM EDT (#405112) #

My thinking is that 5'10" pitchers are not sought after commodities and the Jays seem to be more willing to sign these shorter guys as a market inefficiency than other teams who focus on the more traditional over 6' types.

85bluejay - Tuesday, August 17 2021 @ 03:31 PM EDT (#405120) #

That's true and I think that the Astros have had a lot of success targeting those 5'10" type guys

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