Future Redbirds

Not a bad night’s work down on the farm as 3 of the 4 teams pick up the W.

Memphis 4, Round Rock 2

• The opposing pitcher McElmore struck out 11 Redbirds tonight and didn’t give up a single earned run. Fortunately, for the Redbirds, the Round Rock defense was miserable with 4 errors.
• Brendan Ryan goes 2-for-3 with a triple and a SB (he was also HBP twice).
• Nick Stavinoha had a good night going 3-for-4 with a BB.
• Mike Smith was solid for Memphis tonight. 7 IP, 2 runs, 2 BBs and a sterling 7 Ks.
• Andy Cavazos and Mark Worrell pitched a scoreless 8th and 9th inning, respectively.
• Also my favorite box score information appeared again. “Wind: 1 mph, Varies.” Thanks for that MLB. I know those 1/2 mph gusts of wind must wreak havoc on the balls.

Springfield 6, Tulsa 4

• Tyler Greene goes 2-for-5 with a double and a triple.
• Colby Rasmus hits his 7th HR with a 3-for-4 night plus a BB. He also swiped 2 bags during the game.
• Juan Richardson blasted his 6th HR of the season.
• Bryan Anderson had a so-so offensive night:1-for-3 with a walk. The more concerning note was that he allowed his 6th passed ball. In the majors, they don’t score many pitches as passed balls. Typically it’s a wild pitch. I’m not sure if Anderson is struggling defensively in general or because he’s catching for some pitchers with poor command. If you never know where a pitch is going to go, it’s hard to catch it. I really don’t know which case it is but defense is obviously the biggest question re: Anderson’s development thus far.
• Cory Rauschenberger picks up a win despite walking 5 in 5 innings. A WHIP over 2 in today’s game. . .goes to show how irrelevant a pitchers W/L record really is.
• Chris Perez picked up his 11th save without walking anyone. That’s what we want to see the rest of the season: improved command and a lower walk rate.

Palm Beach 9, Vero Beach 1

• Allen Craig was the offensive star going 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles. He picked up 2 RBI, scored a run, stole a base and drew a walk.
• Mark Hamilton, Ian Church and Jose Martinez all had two-hit performances.
• The story of the night is, without a doubt, Adam Ottavino. In 5 innings of work, he struck out an eye-popping 9 batters. He walked 2 and only allowed 2 hits. That’s an impressive 5 innings of work (I’ll blithely overlook his 2 wild pitches on the night). Let’s check in on Ottavino’s peripherals. He’s struck out 51 batters in 42 inning. He’s got a 1.34 GO/AO ratio. Thus far he’s had an unusually low HR rate (1 HR in 42 IP) but a slightly above average BABIP of .351. The HR rate (firstinning.com has it at 2% as of this writing) will go up and the BABIP will probably come down a little. BABIP in the minors can be a little higher than what you see in the majors since fielders aren’t necessarily as skilled at turning balls into outs. His 2.14 ERA is half a run lower than his FIP ERA but still very good. Mr. Ottavino is having himself an excellent season with the peripherals to back it up.

Quad Cities 5, West Michigan 6

• 2b Jared Schweitzer went 3-for-4 with a HR collecting 4 RBI.
• Brad Furnish started for QC. He went 4 innings with 5 hits, 2 runs (1 earned) and struck out 2.
  
• Kyle Mura posted zeros in relief of Furnish for an inning.
• Tyler Herron pitched a nifty 3 innings striking out 4. He walked 1 allowed 3 hits and 1 ER.
• Given the odd tandem starter setup that QC uses there isn’t alot of leftover innings for pure relievers. I was surprised that Kenny Maiques had been in 15 of the Swings 41 games thus far pitching 14.2 innings. That’s not an outrageously low number of games but I hope that the one-inning relievers aren’t ignored in QC because they aren’t starters. Maiques seems like a nice young arm with a 2:1 K:BB ratio and groundball tendencies. He blew his first save and took the loss tonight though — and it was ugly. He struck out 2, walked a batter, hit a batter and allowed 3 hits on his way to giving up 3 runs in the 9th inning. The Swing wouldn’t threaten in the bottom of the 9th mustering only a single as W. Michigan wins.