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Sunday, May 27, 2007

Joba For President

Injuries/News:

Steve White will be back soon, destination unknown.

AAA:

Eric Duncan was 2 for 3 with a walk to get his average up to .231. With the walk, Duncan’s K:BB ratio inched ever closer to becoming even. Alberto Gonzalez also had a 2-hit game, going 2 for 4 with a strikeout to reach .247.

Chris Britton pitched a scoreless inning of relief, granting 1 hit. Britton’s ERA dropped to .78. In 23 innings he has given up 20 hits and 9 walks while striking out 26.

AA:

The big news out of AA was Brett Smith’s first poor outing of the year. Smith’s line of 5-7-3-3-2-2-1 (IP-H-R-ER-BB-K-HR) would have made sense in year’s past, but not this time around. It could be just a blip on the radar in an otherwise tremendous season, or it could be a sign that Smith is beginning to cool off from the season long hot streak he’s been on.

A+:

Despite not picking up the victory, Joba Chamberlain was outstanding. Joba would post a final line of 8-2-0-0-2-9-0 while tossing 98 pitches. The most impressive part of the outing was that Chamberlain seemed to get stronger as the game went on, generating a ton of swings and misses in his last 3 innings. The Yankees have been slow to promote Ian Kennedy to AA despite his dominance, and I think that can be blamed on them wanting to promote Joba and Ian at the same time. Following this start, I can’t see the duo staying in Tampa past mid-June.

Jose Tabata was 1 for 4 with a walk, a double, and a strikeout. Tabata has hit 2 of his 6 doubles on the year in the last 3 games. Most impressive in his ABs today was the patience Jose was demonstrating. Reegie Corona does not seem to be seeing the ball well, as he went 1 for 4 with a walk and a strikeout. The box score wasn’t that bad, but Reegie had a lot of swings and misses and was able to put together a decent game in spite of that. The poorest showing of the day, however, belonged to Marcos Vechionacci. Marcos was 0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts and when he did make contact, it was excessively weak. Francisco Cervelli was 1 for 3 with a double and a strikeout and Colin Curtis was 1 for 4 with a walk. Both guys had the types of at bats that would have them classified as professional hitters by announcers across America. Unfortunately, while Curtis is heating up, Cervelli seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Francisco has struck out at least once in 9 straight games, including 2 games where he struck out thrice. He has 13 strikeouts in the last 36 at bats.

A-:

33. Mitch Hilligoss was 1 for 4 with a walk and a strikeout to push his streak to 33 games. Mitch has managed just 1 hit in 4 of the last 5 games, so it would seem that the streak is nearing its conclusion. Austin Jackson was 2 for 5 with a double and Jose Gil was 1 for 3 with a walk as the Charleston offense posted 6 runs on 11 hits. The member of the lineup most responsible for the scoring was Seth Fortenberry, who was 3 for 5 with his 9th double and 7th homer. Despite my love for age relative to league, I have a soft spot for Seth, so I’m happy to see that he seems to be warming up.

Mike Dunn, who definitely seems to be going through some type of fatigue, had a line of 5-7-3-3-1-5-0. It was good enough to pick up Dunn’s 5th victory of the year. As a converted pitcher, it makes sense that Dunn might have more battles with fatigue than the other guys on the farm.

Spotlight On:

Alan Horne and his 6:1 K:BB ratio going for Trenton.