Future Redbirds

Project Prospect has an interview with Colby Rasmus. Good stuff. One part I found kinda interesting:

Foster: Do you worry about your batting average? Do you think that’s a key statistic, or do you focus more on other things in your game?

Rasmus: I see that as a key thing, but it is a big thing…especially when I go from hitting .300-.310 to .240-.250. I’ve never had a slump like that in my life. It was something that was pretty hard; I usually just try to get a lot of extra-base hits…get in those RBIs. Those are probably the main thing I try to focus on: average, extra-base hits, and RBIs

Of course I think batting average can be overrated and when you can walk and pound out those XHB’s like Rasmus can, that’s OK. That said, Rasmus was striking out in nearly 30% of his at bats for the month of July, that’s just bad by any measure and will certainly kill your BA. Since then, Colby apparently has made some adjustments at least for the past week. He’s hitting .462/.611/1.000 for August so far, and most encouragingly he’s cut the K rate in half. Hopefully he can build on this. He wrapped out another double and walked twice today.

Cory Rauschenberger is working on ironing out his mechanics–

Riggins spotted a flaw - Rauschenberger has had a bad habit of lowering his arm slot, resulting in hitters getting a better read on his pitches.

Yawn. I don’t find Rauschenberger all that an intriguing prospect. Sure, he gets ground balls but he doesn’t miss enough bats to be on anyone’s radar. A 5.17 FIP is rather yucky, but heck, with the state of big league pitching rotation he can’t be much worse then the Joel Pineiros and Mike Maroths of the world.

For whatever it’s worth, Tagg Bozied broke the Memphis RBI record.

[Azru edit 12:13am] Quick Intrusion:

Falkenborg clears waivers to Memphis & Lambert to the DL with strained oblique (this injury sounds totally made up to me to make room for Falkenborg). Also, it’s very late but does anyone else count 26 people on the Memphis roster right now?[end edit]

On with Sundays games

Memphis 5, Portland 6

• Jarrett Hoffpauir went 2 for 4 with a double.
• Brendan Ryan went 3 for 5 with a stolen base.
• Joe Mather went 1 for 2 with 2 walks and a steal.
• Nick Stavinoha doubled.
• Troy Cate and Andy Cavazos could not hold the fort down, allowing 3 runs in the 8th.

Springfield 5, Tulsa 6

• Colby Rasmus doubled, drew two walks and stole a base.
• Mark Hamilton went 2 for 3 with a double.
• Eric Haberer allowed 6 runs, 5 earned on 7 hits, a HBP and 4 walks, striking out 3.
• Zachary Zuercher struck out 3 in 2 perfect innings.

Palm Beach 0, Dunedin 8

• The team only had 4 hits, Jonathan Jay and Luke Gorsett both had doubles.
• Brad Furnish allowed 5 runs on 6 hits and 5 walks. Blech! He also had 10 fly balls.
• Michael Cooper allowed 3 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks over 2.2, also throwing 3 wild pitches. Why is he allowed on a field?

Quad Cities 4, West Michigan 8

• Steve Hill can hit. He had a .940 OPS going into today’s game and went 2 for 4 with a double today. On the negative, Steve Hill probably isn’t the catcher of the future. He allowed a passed ball and 6 steals on 7 attempts, and three of those steals came off the opposing team’s catcher. To be fair, that other catcher does have 15 steals for the season.
• Nicholas Derba, the guy who probably should be doing the catching for the Swing was DHing today, and hit he did. He went 3 for 4 with a double, a HR and 3 RBI and is now hitting .351/.467/.541.
• Daryl Jones went 2 for 5 and picked up his 10th fielding error.
• Shaun Garceau has smacked into the wall lately, allowing 6 runs on 8 hits and 4 walks over 3.1 innings. I’ve seen him pitch and really came away impressed with his stuff, I have no idea what’s happening. 8 of the outs he recorded were fly balls, not a good sign.
• Kenny Maiques pitched a scoreless inning.

Batavia 1, Williamsport 3

• Thomas Eager is eager to prove us wrong. Ha! Seriously, he allowed 1 hit and a walk while striking out 7 in 5 IP.
• Clayton Long allowed 2 homers and allowed 3 total runs.
• David Carpenter went 2 for 4 with a double.
• Thomas Pham doubled and struck out twice.

Johnson City was off.

GCL Cards 3, GCL Marlins 6 in 12 innings.

• Sorry if I skimp on this one, but about 23 and 2/3rds players played in this game for the Cardinals.
• Matt North, a 9th round pick from ‘06 out of HS returned from the DL and threw one perfect inning, striking out 1.
• Also rehabbing still was Reid Gorecki, who went 2 for 5 with a double.
• 3rd baseman Juan Cabrera hit 2 doubles.