Durham at Buffalo - Postponed
New Hampshire 3 Portland 14
Vancouver 0 Spokane 1
Dunedin 2 Jupiter 3
Three Stars
Third Star - Yhoangel Aponte
Second Star - Grant Rogers
First Star - Khal Stephen
NOTES
Through the early part of the season the affiliates have generally had excellent pitching, but the hitting has been lacking. In AAA Jon Clase is hitting well, Addison Barger is OK and most of the rest haven't started hitting yet. Even Barger, and Loperfido, have a 40% K rate. Orelvis has 11 K's in 15 AB's. Buffalo hitters are 20th out of 20 AAA teams in hitting and OPS. The weather has been terrible and that could be the reason. None of the starters have pitched well and so the team is 2-6.
Last night for New Hampshire CJ Van Eyk and Geison Urbaez were hit around although the fielders made four errors behind them. Michael Dominguez pitched well in relief. I don't know if he is permanently in the bullpen now. New Hampshire have used just four starters. Devereaux Harrison, Anders Tolhurst and Rafael Sanchez have pitched well but the team is hitting .169. It's not the worst in the league, it's tenth out of twelve. Half the teams are hitting under .200. Again weather or skill level?
Vancouver too have excellent pitching. Four starting pitchers have a zero ERA. One is at 2.25. One of them is Grant Rogers who threw six shutout innings on Thursday. Vancouver do have a few hitters playing well. Jay Harry, Arjun Nimmala and Brennan Orf are hitting over .300. Sean Keys and Adrian Pinto are also pitching well.
Khal Stephen was outstanding for Dunedin, six innings, nine strikeouts. He gave up one hit, a home run. Stephen had 14 whiffs. He mixed five pitches and averaged 91.7 with the fastball. Lots of people will say "send him to Vancouver" but we don't know what targets the Jays have given him. The targets are unlikely to be wins or ERA, more likely to be about pitch development or pitch command. That is why it is so hard to predict promotions. If you do want to promote Stephen, or Yesavage, who gets bumped from the Vancouver rotation. You could be brutal and bump Connor O'Halloran but who is next? You might want to wait until one of the Vancouver starters is ready for New Hampshire. I have been told by coaches in the past that pitchers can get good work in at a lower level than they are ready for because they can still work on hitting their spots and refining their pitches. Hitters on the other hand need to hit against better pitching when they are ready.
Dunedin's five starters have been outstanding. Three zero ERA's, a 0.82 and the worst one, 2.25. Two hitters, Manuel Beltre and Braden Barry are hitting over .300. Tucker Toman who was going well, had an 0-4. Sam Shaw's average is down to .231. The D Jays don't have a top 30 prospect hitter on their team. One thing I have noted is that JR Freethy is usually on the top exit velocity list even if his batting average doesn't reflect it.
So where does this leave us. The hitting at AAA and AA is woeful so far. The starting pitching is hit and miss. The picture is a little better at the A level but just a bit. The starting pitching has been outstanding.
It is just a week into the season but the hitters need to find the warm bats, not even the hot ones.
