The book on Erik was 5 and two thirds innings,2 runs,neither earned,striking out 3 and walking none.
One of Erik's 3 strikeouts was of heralded Oriole prospect Billy Rowell....
My only beef on the evening was with Suns skipper Tommy Herr on why Erik was removed.
With the first two batters retired,an error by 1st baseman Robby Jacobsen caused a runner to reach and Herr was immediately out to remove Arnesen from the game and call for Coby Mavroulis.
I am not sure if Herr wanted to have the lefty Mavroulis to face the next batter-left handed hitting Brandon Tripp or that Erik had reached his pitch count.
Either way,considering the low A level,I would have handled it this way- Go out and talk to Arnesen and tell him the following.
Tripp is the last batter that you are facing.
Get the out-inning over,if Tripp gets on,then there are two on and the reliever is on his way in.
Sometimes teams just get a bit too caught up in pitch counts etc and don't allow pitchers to progress in getting out of tough situations.
After all,isn't that part of development?
Anyway,Mavroulis was able to get out of the inning without allowing a score and giving Arnesen the no decision.
Erik pitched as well as I have seen him this season and seems to be coming into his own as the season ends.
This effort would be a good one to end the season with,but I am not sure if he will have another outing this year or not.
He could pitch the season ender in Lakewood Monday,but it is possible that tonight was his finale'.
The game was fun for the roughly 400 people there.
Delmarva scored three runs in the ninth to take a 5-4 lead,but a Francisco Plascencia double with two out in the bottom of the stanza scored both the winning and tying runs for Hagerstown.
Plascencia has been the Suns best hitter in the month of August and has played well defensively as well.
Meanwhile the drive to save the Captain continued as the Pirates swept the Cincinnati Reds in a doubleheader.
Freddy Sanchez was the one man show in Game 1 as he knocked in 5 of th
e 6 Pirate runs with 4 coming on a Grand Slam Homer (11).Jason Bay's solo homer (20) scored the other Pittsburgh run.
Tom Gorzelanny pitched 6 unspectacular innings,but picked up the win to improve to 13-7.
Sometimes things do even out,as one remembers some of those great outings that did not result in wins for Gorzelanny earlier in the year when the offense was inept.
Matt Capps fired a scoreless 9th for his 14th save of the year.
Meanwhile in the nightcap,the Bucs used 7 strong innings from Paul Maholm and scored single runs in the 7th and 8th to squeeze by the Reds 3-2.
Jose Castillo's 5th inning single scored 1 run and singles by Matt Kata and Adam LaRoche in the late innings gave the Buccos the sweep.
B.P. Chacon got the last out of the top of the 8th to earn the victory and move to 5-4,while Matt Capps again threw a scoreless ninth to get his 2nd save of the evening and 15th of the year.
The teams battle again tomorrow at 7:05.
Pitching Matchup
Cincinnati:Aaron Harang (13-3) at Pittsburgh: Ian Snell (8-10) 7:05.
Bullpen Notes
Enjoyed watching tonight's game with reader Bill Cover.
Bill is a great guy and always a good time talking the game with him.
Battlin Bob will be at tonight's game vs the Shorebirds..
Battlin Bob's favorite Bucco minor leaguer , Outfielder Brad Corley was promoted from High A Lynchburg to AA Altoona today and made his debut with the Curve going 1 for 4.
This is usual procedure for the Pirates late in the season,as shown by the promoting last week of Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker.
My biggest problem with Corley as a prospect is his lack of plate patience.
That is the type of flaw that the more skilled hurlers will attempt to take advantage of as he moves up the ladder.
In any event,here is rooting for Brad,as he is always engaging as we have noted in the past.
In better late than never news,here is an amusing story (to me at least).
Last week,as Ryan and I watched the Giants-Cubs game,Ryan remarked on the lack of hitting ability of Matt Cain.
Cain then proceeded In THAT AT BAT to drive a pitch over the fence,causing me to laugh hysterically and Ryan to kick himself !
From here on out,he is now Matt "Boom Boom" Cain....
I know a lot of Big Ten fans are furious at the new Big Ten network or cable providers etc,but here is a good word for them.
The network has 4 games this week at 12:00,which I figured for sure would mean that being in Maryland meant no Ohio State and stuck with Penn State this weekend.
But Direct TV is showing all 4 games by putting them on unused channels.
Kudos to whoever made this call!!!!
Here is a link to a Detroit News article on baseball's mysterious Player to be named later...........
Ohio State announced Todd Boeckman as the starting QB for the opener Saturday vs Youngstown State.
Boeckman beat out Junior Rob Schoenhoft and Freshmen Antonio Henson and Joe Bauserman.
Yes,Pirate fans,the same Joe Bauserman that pitched for the Hickory Crawdads last season.
Schoenhoft will also see action on Saturday,but the player I am looking forward to eventually seeing is Henson.
He is said to be quite an exciting player.
A note on Bauserman.
Joe played for Hickory in 2006 and appeared here in Hagerstown during a 4 game Crawdad sweep of the Suns.
This was the series that Battlin Bob and I infuriated the Suns fans by bringing small hand brooms and waving them around while hollering "Sweep" late in the last night.
In any event,we were exchanging high fives with Crawdad pitchers Dustin Craig and Blair Johnson and talking with others throughout the series,but Bauserman sat far away from the other players,didn't talk at all and basically looked like one unhappy guy for 4 days.
The only time I saw any life from him at all was when fellow Buckeye fan Mike Oravec spoke to Joe about OSU.
Suddenly his eyes lit up and he looked like a kid at the proverbial candy store.
I knew then that this guy was not long for baseball.........
Photo Credits
Arnesen-Ryan Heimberger
Sanchez-AP Photo-Gene Puskar
2 comments:
In my defense, Len & Bob (The Cubs announcers) remarked that Cain had a career .104 ON BASE PERCENTAGE when he stepped to the plate.
Chip Caray and Steve Stone wouldn't have mentioned something like that and Cain would have grounded out to the pitcher :)
As much as i like Corley, this is just a move by the capt.. do you really think they would move all these guys around if his job was safe?i hope Brad does well in Altoona,hopefully we can get up there next year
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