Cleveland Sports Forum

Wednesday in the minors:

LaPorta with another great day at bat: 2 singles, 2 walks, 2 rbi, 364
Chisenhall single, double, error #8, 317;
Huff 4 innings in AAA debut, 4 runs earned on 7 hits, 2 K.
Hagadone in what should be the last minor league appearance of his career, 2 innings, 2 hits, 2 K.

Chen 2 singles and double and 2 rbi.
Abraham 2 singles, 4 walks,
Cody Allen keeps excelling: 2 batters faced, 2 batters struck out.
Guilmet and Bryson both blow save opportunities.

TJHouse 6 innings, 2 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks; 4K.
I was wrong about the lack of relievers outside Akron. There are a couple of interest in Carolina:
Armstrong, a 2011 draftee, 2 innings, 4 K 1 hit, nothing else.
Flores, a 6-5 RH, 1 innings, 1 walk, 2K.
At bat for the Mudcats: Giovanny Urshela my 2011 breakout man, 4hits, one a double. Jake Lowery with seems like his daily norm: one single, one double, 359 avg. Wolters continues to perfect his walking, draws 2 more. 25-year-old Jeremie TIce with 2 homers and 4 RBI. RonnieRod with E#8. Aguillar 0-4 with 3K. Holt single, double, walk, 348.

Besides LRod in Lake County, Lindor singles, walks, doubles and is caught stealing.
My 2012 breakout Robel Garice with his first homer, walk, 3RBI, error.

Box scores:

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A little too early to start crying about Putnam. Heard the same thing about the players that went to the Cubs. We have a slew of middle relievers in the minors.

The slew is a little diminished but middle relievers are of course one of the easiest positions to fill. Aeros are full of reasonably talented relief pitchers, although 25 year olds repeating AA are not necessarily major league candidates.

Placed on 7-day DL: RHP Clayton Cook, RHP Chen Lee, RHP Danny Salazar
Reinstated from DL: C Luke Carlin, 3B Andy LaRoche

Only two teams played last night, both games decided late, 8-5 win for Carolina on Giovanny Urshela 3 run homer in the 9th. Captains win 7-6 in 11. Some hightlights:

Urshela also had a single; the future Gold Glover is now batting 273 in Carolina. Muidct Jeremie Tice, almost as old as new Browns rookie QB, with a pair of doubles. Moncrief tripled, singled and walked twice. INteresting game develoment: 257 pound Jesus Aguillar enters as pinch runner for Tice.

Biggest pitching news: Trey Haley appears for the first time this season, 1 shutout inning, 1 walk, 1 K.

For the Captaisn, 3 hits by Lindor, he's back up to 289. Jordan Smith returns to the lineup as DH and singles. Zach McPhee, sounds like a character on Mr. Rogers, draws 3 walks: always be patient kids.
Felix Sterling 5 innings, 3 runs on 4 hits and 3 walks, only a single strikeout.
Kyle Blair with a perfect 10 up, 10 down, 4 on strikes. But it's going to take a long time to bring down the ERA after the 13 run start earlier in April. He's now at 12.08.

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The commissioner's office announced a pair of 50-game suspensions, both tied to performance-enhancing substance use, handed out to minor league pitchers. Both players tested positive for metabolites of Stanozolol.

Indians minor league lefthander Harold Guerrero finished last season with low Class A Lake County but had not yet debuted this season. The 21-year-old spent the majority of 2011 with short-season Mahoning Valley, where he ran up a 6.14 ERA in 16 appearances, seven of them starts. He struck out 36 and walked 25 in 48 1/3 innings.

[If that is an enhanced performance, I would not like to see him pitch without the drugs.]

Not much offense on the farm. Clippers win 4-1 (on 12 hits as inefficiently used as by the Tribe last night), 2-1 win for Akron, 2-7 loss by Carolina, and 0-3 loss by Lake County where the Captains made 4 errors.

ZachMac 7 3 1 1 0 3 Herrmann and Ray with a scoreless inning each
GiovanniSoto 5 2/3 5 1 1 0 4 Price 2 innings 5K, Guilmet perfect inning
in Carolina noteworthy pitching by Jose Flores: fans the side; ERA for big RH is 0.84
Elvis Araujo 5 1/3 7 2 2 1 5

Matt Laporta 6th HR, and single, 3 rbi: 371
Mills, singles, doubles 310
Chisenhall double, walk 318
Phelps double 300
Carlin 2 hits 458
Canzler 2 hits 250

Fedroff double, walk 333
Roberto Perez triple, walk 234

Tony Gallas single, double, homer 343
RonnieRod 0-3 234
Aguillar 0-4 303 with one homer
Lowery 0-4 2K 324

Garcia 2 hits, 2 errors
Lindor singles
LuigiRod out; Jordan Smith back in the oF

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Matt LaPorta continues to hit AAA pitching: single and double and 2 walks, hitting 389 OPS 1180. He has 18 K in 72 AB, however.
Beau Mills with his 2nd homer. Russ Canzler 2 hits. Chisenhall ditto.
Kevin Slowey kind of typical line for him: 6 10 4 4 1 2
singled shutout inngs by Ambriz, de la Torre and Accardo.

3 in 8th give Columbus a 6-4 win

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Another low-scoring loss for Carolina, 3-2. MIke Rayl merely OK, 5 innings, the 3 runs on 6 hits, 2K. Shawn Armstrong nearly perfect in 3 innings, no runs, 1 hit, no walks, 3 K. For the month of April the 18th round pick last year has worked 15 innings, allowed 0 runs on 6 hits, he's walked 8 and fanned 19.

The offense was 2 hits and a walk for Tyler Holt and an rbi single from Gio Urshela who had a solid week.
Meanwhile Aguillar, Lowery and Moncrief were all 0-4 with 2 strikouts

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Armstrong signed for 3rd round money ($325,000) last summer. BA;s writeup on the draft database:

Scouts had hopes for East Carolina righthander Shawn Armstrong coming into the season, but he was inconsistent. He has a strong body at 6-foot-2, 215 pounds and a good arm, and he's at his best when he sits 91-92 mph down in the zone. He'll touch 94 and show a curveball and slider, with the former being a better pitch. He had made 18 appearances—six starts—going 3-1, 4.22 in 43 innings with 49 strikeouts and 21 walks.

Nice bounceback by Will Roberts with 7 shutout innings, 4 hits, no walks, typical low K total of 3. Last time out he was banged around for 8 runs (6 earned) but season ERA is 2.91. He has 13 K in 31 IP. He was a 5th rounder last year and signed for less than half of what Armstrong got: $150,000, his scouring report:

Righthander Will Roberts was a midweek starter at the beginning of the year and forced his way into the Sunday role after throwing a perfect game against George Washington in late March. He didn't lose a game until the last series of the regular season, going 10-1, 1.67 in 81 innings. Roberts ranges from 88-92 mph with his fastball, and offers a good slider and solid changeup.

Captans bats produced 6 runs. LuigiRod with 3 singles. Lindor two singles, a walk, a steal, a caught stealing (he's 8 of 12) and an error, his 4th). one double apiece by Monsalve, Garcia and Jordan Smith. Sabourin 3 hits, one another double. Lavisky 2 singles and a walk.

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Aeros postponed. So the whole organization goes homerless

Scott Barnes is on the DL along with Chen Lee in Columbus. Our "bullpen depth" is kind of hard to find now; the only young relievers now with the Clippers are Herrmann and recently promoted Kyle not a ranked prospect Landis. On the AA DL are starters Austin Adams who was added to the 40 man roster but missed all of ST and marginal propsect Matt Packer. Clayton Cook a more marginal starter is on the Carolina DL as is Danny Salazar, the usually injured RH who was the surprise add-on to the 40-man roster and 2011 top drafted pitchers Dillon Howard and Jake Sisco have not made 2012 debuts.

The minor league mediocre starer ranks are currently:

AAA McAllister 3.00, Slowey 4.85, Kluber 3.43, Seddon 4.66 and Huff 9.00
AA: McFarland 2.11, Soto 4.05, Berger 6.72, Wright 1.46 and Unknown. [Berger is a reliever]
HIA: Rayl 3.25, House 1.44, Goodnight 5.30, Brach 6.39 and Jiminez 4.32. [Jiminez is a reliever]
LoA: Sterling 3.60, Araujo 2.49, Roberts 2.90, Colon 4.26and Anderson 2.70.

3-2 win for the Clippers. Cord Phelps with 11th double and 1st homer. Russ Canzler 3 hits and a steal; he's 17 for his last 40 with only 1 rbi, he's now a singles hitter (no homers among his 3 xb hits). Corey Kluber 2 runs, both unearned in 6 7-hit innings, 6 K. Cody Allen has now reached AAA 10 months since he was drafted in the 23rd round, 2 1-hit scorelless innings, 2K Chris Ray the save 1 scorelss 2 K.

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