Future Redbirds

When I sit down to pour over box scores for the report, it’s easy to miss things that are a little more subtle than Ankiel or Mather mashing a homerun. I’m glad when our astute readers catch those things I miss. A comment from John had two notes that I should have caught: (1) Springfield slapped around Kansas City Royals uber-prospect Luke Hochevar and (2) Jon Jay was hurt.

From the Springfield News-Leader:

“Outfielder Jon Jay extending his hitting streak to nine games with a two-run triple in the fifth inning, but jammed his right wrist sliding into the third-base bag and left the game with trainer Brad LaRosa.”

I’ll keep an eye out for any new information that comes out about Jay. I’ve survived finals week (and graduate on Saturday) so my sanity is slowly returning and I can resume my nightly devouring of box scores and game articles. But enough about me, this is about prospects! On to the report.

Memphis 9, Albuquerque 10

• Old friends John Gall and Scott Seabol show up again on the Isotopes (which is a sweet baseball team name, imho). They both went 1-for-4 with Gall’s hit clearing the fence. Gall also got himself ejected from the game in the 7th inning.
• Brendan Ryan went 3-for-6 with a double and a triple. He’s showing signs of life. . .
• Rick Ankiel went 3-for-5 with his 8th HR — no surprise — and a walk — surprise!
• John Rodriguez went 2-for-5 with a double.
• Ryan “Call me up to the bigs” Ludwick went 2-for-4 with a double and 4 RBI.
• Tagg Bozied and Rico Washington both had HRs.
• Travis Hanson had a goose egg in 5 ABs.
• Alas, it wasn’t enough as the pitching couldn’t hold it together tonight. Chris Narveson only lasted 3.2 innings allowing 6 ER with 4BBs and 4 Ks (he had 1 out on the ground, the other 6 in the air). The relievers weren’t helping much either: Matt Ginter - 1 ER in 1.1 IP, Chris Lambert 1ER in 2 IP, Andy Cavazos 2 ER and the loss in 1 IP. Only Mark Worrell pitched a scoreless inning in the 9th.

Springfield 3, Wichita 4 (11 innings)

• Dan’s got some notes on Rasmus at GetUpBaby to go with erik’s thoughts below. Just as Colby Rasmus is heating up, the other 20-something, Bryan Anderson, is cooling off a little. Not to say he’s doing poorly - quite the opposite. He’s hit just .222 in the last 10 games (starting 4/19) but he’s also walked in 10% of his plate appearances and is striking out in an acceptable 20% of his at bats. He’s still sporting a .869 OPS. Quick, number of times Yadier Molina posted an OPS north of .800 in the minors? Answer, zero. In all fairness, we’re early in the season but Anderson excites me as much as Rasmus does — they both play difficult defensive positions, post great offensive numbers relative to those positions and are 20 years old in AA. Colby went 1-for-5 with a BB and his 4th stolen base tonight while Anderson went 0-for-5 with a catcher’s interference error.
• Juan Encarnacion had a multi-hit game going 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles. I hope the Cardinals aren’t pinning their hopes on Juan rescuing the offense but if he bumps one of the infamous Skip/Gooch/Wilson from the big league club, I won’t shed any tears.
• Joe Mather goes 2-for-4 with a double and two walks.
• Juan Richardson went 2-for-6 with a double and a HR as Springfield’s DH.
• Springfield stranded a ridiculously high 17 runners on the base paths tonight. Wichita stranded 11 of their own.
• Jaime Garcia had a great outing — 5.2 innings, 2 ER, 3 BBs, 5Ks and 1HR. I’m not a fan of the walks but he’s got his strikeout rate at a fantastic level not to mention he had a 9:2 groundout:flyout ration on the night. A pitcher that strikes out batters, gets groundball and is fortunate enough to throw with his left-hand — be still my heart.
• The relief corps allowed 2 ER in 6 innings. Tough loss for the Springfield Cardinals but a good game all around.

Palm Beach 2, Brevard County 6

• Shane Robinson was your offensive star for the night in Palm Beach. Not that that’s difficult when your team only collects 5 hits. Robinson went 2-for-4 and stole his 9th base of the season.
• Nathan Southard went 1-for-3 with a BB.
• A so-so outing by Trey Hearne: 6.2 IP, 5 ER, 3BB and 2Ks. For someone who doesn’t have great stuff, he hasn’t been able to sneak much by High-A batters like he could in Quad Cities last year. He sports a 4.89 ERA on the season. He does have 19:8 K:BB ratio and a HR/9 less than 1 in 35 innings which ain’t bad, though.

Quad Cities 3, Cedar Rapids 4

• Brandon Buckman has shown some nice pop from his bat this season with a SLG of .535 — what he hasn’t shown is good plate discipline walking in under 5% of his plate appearances. He went 2-for-4 with a double today.
• Jaime Landin sports a nifty .375 OBP and drew 2 BBs tonight. On a squad without any real offensive power houses, Landin is doing pretty well for a middle infielder.
• Daryl Jones went 1-for-4 on the night.
• A so-so night for Tyler Herron as well going 4.2 innings allowing 3 runs and striking out 3.
• Brad Furnish threw three innings in relief1 run (0 earned, 2 BBs and 2 Ks.