Couple of housekeeping items. First off, between erik and myself, there’s been quite of few posts lately outside of the Daily Prospect Reports. erik is forecasting the draft (part one, part two). As he preps you on the draftees that may be entering our system shortly (and the last of a dying breed), I’m trying to sort through the players currently in our system and make some promotions and demotions. I’ve covered the Quad Cities team thus far (hitters, pitchers) with the Palm Beach hitters hopefully ready by Sunday.
Secondly, I am very excited — Monday I’ll be up in the Quad Cities to watch the Swing. Pictures and my takes on the players should arrive on the site shortly thereafter (or whenever I get around to writing about it). I have every intention of taking a little notebook to scribble in while my friends stare at me in bemusement as I furiously take notes/thoughts. It’ll be a different experience from digging through numbers and I can’t wait.
Now on to the Report!
- Brendan Ryan goes 2-for-5.
- Nick Stavinoha goes 3-for-4.
- Rick Ankiel went 0-for-3 with a sac fly.
- Mike ‘Roster Filler’ Smith gave up 7 ER in 6.1 innings. Forget the peripherals, that’s just bad.
- Chris Lambert got touched up for 2 runs without retiring a batter on 2 hits and a walk. He didn’t do Smith any favors allowing his inherited runner to score. What goes around. . .
- . . .comes around as Hugo Castellanos allows both his inherited runs to score. He technically didn’t give up any runs allowing a hit and striking out 3 in 1.2 innings.
- Ryan Braun led off tonight. Warning: Rant ahead. (Hey, Nashville Sounds manager. Yeah, you. I don’t know what your name is; don’t care really. But I feel sorry for your team. Why, you ask? Because you have the skills of Jerry Narron when it comes to filling out lineup cards. It’s that bad. Ryan Braun is slugging like .700 and you have him batting first while your monster 3 & 4 hitters are slugging a Christian Guzman like sub .400. Seriously, even if Braun has a great OBP he belongs in the 3-spot. Fortunately, Doug Melvin and Ned Yost have come to their collective senses and called up Braun for Friday. Bet you they don’t bat him leadoff.) end rant
- Tyler Greene went 4-for-5 with a pair of doubles and a SB.
- Colby Rasmus went 2-for-4 with a pair of doubles. Holy prospect Batman, I obviously haven’t been looking at the Rasmus Watch that erik conveniently posts on the sidebar because Rasmus is now hitting .304/.397/.563! 20B:24Ks = a thing of beauty.
- Joe Mather went yard for just the second time in May after crushing 10 in April. Joe, you’ve got about a week before I have to decide whether to promote you. Show me what you got.
- Bryan Anderson picked up his 5th error. Combined with the 6 passed balls he has and it’s pretty obvious that he still has some defensive work to do.
- Mitchell Boggs threw 6.2 innings allowing just 1 run. He had 3BBs and just 2Ks but an impressive 13-5 GO/AO ratio. He also only allowed one extra base hit out of the 4 hits on the night.
- Matthew Scherer picked up his first save after throwing 2.1 scoreless innings striking out 2. (I’m assuming Perez wasn’t available after pitching 2 innings yesterday.)
- AJ Van Slyke went 3-for-5 with PB’s only extra base hit, a double.
- Mark Hamilton went 2-for-4 with a BB.
- Jose Martinez went 2-for-4.
- Nathan Southard went 3-for-4.
- The PB team outhit Lakeland 13-10 in the loss.
- Adam Ottavino only lasted 2.2 innings. Hard to say from the box score, but maybe he just didn’t have command of his pitches and they pulled him during a high pitch count inning. The log for the third inning is crazy including an error by Ott, a wild pitch, a walk and a bunch of hits.
- Edward Romero shut down QC allowing 1 run in his 8 innings of work against the Swing. He struck out 8 while walking none. Carved up the QC lineup top to bottom.
- Luke Gorsett was the only one to really touch Romero going 2-for-3 with a double.
- Eddie Degerman scuffled tonight walking 4 and striking out 4 in 4 innings. He allowed 2 solo homeruns in his work. I’m making a huge jump in logic, but I bet that he was hanging some curveballs tonight. He’s still had a great start to the season with an ERA just over 2.05 now.
- Shaun Garceau came in and shut down South Bend for 4.1 innings striking out 5 against 0 walks and 3 hits. He did allow an unearned run when. . .
- . . .Kyle Mura allowed his inherited runner to score.
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re: rant. In minor league ball they typically do “odd” things in the name of getting your work in. Braun is probably leading off (I can’t document this) so that he gets an extra (5-10 per week) plate appearances before his promotion. Repetition, It does the prospect good.
re: rant –> documentation. Apparently Braun was on the DL at some point this year and they were batting him leadoff to get the plate appearances.
I hear what your saying Brian, and it’s the only rational conclusion that doesn’t make the Sounds manager seem like a dolt. That said, I’m not sure it’s right. Braun isn’t in the minors to get ABs. He’s there to work on his defense. The Brewers know he can hit; they know he can hit balls really hard in fact. What they weren’t certain of was his defense, which was sketchy at best during spring training. The difference in ABs would be minimal moving him down to the 3rd spot in the lineup and frankly it would help the AAA team score more runs.
The only other thing I’ll say is that they are having Braun hit in a context that he’s not likely to encounter in the majors. He’s not a leadoff hitter — he has too much power for that.
Maybe you’re right but I still would be frustrated by that if I was on the Nashville Sounds.
As an addendum, here’s an article about lineup contstruction with links littered throughout via the Hardball Times, The Book, Beyond the Box Score, etc. It gets a little to mathy for me but the article and all it’s various lineups have the best hitter in the cleaup position. Braun should be in the middle of the order, imo.