A couple of injury updates to lead the DFR tonight:
- David Freese is listed as day-to-day with a knee contusion after making contact on a slide.
- Josh Kinney went to see Dr. James Andrews for a second opinion after feeling pain in his elbow from breaking pitches. Andrews and Dr. Lewis Yocum are two names you never want to hear in connection with your baseball players.
I’m also going to post each team’s record tonight as requested. It’s a good idea, although I think it will be better served on a weekly basis.
- Memphis 10-14, .417, 3rd in Division
- Springfield 10-13, .435, 1st in Division (Texas North division is all under .500!)
- Palm Beach 16-8, .667, 1st in Division
- Quad Cities 13-9, .591, 3rd in Division
- Jarrett Hoffpauir was 3-for-5 with a SB and a CS.
- Brian Barden went 3-for-5 with a double.
- Josh Phelps and Amaury Marti both went 2-for-5.
- A nice outing for Mitchell Boggs who went 5 innings allowing 3 hits and 2 runs (0 earned). He struck out 6 and walked 2.
- Mark Worrell came in and struck out the only two batters he faced. Note to the Cardinals: He’s ready for a shot at the bigs. He’s not a world beater but there’s no reason to ride your bullpen arms into the ground when you have useful players in AAA as well.
- Chris Perez allowed 1 hit and struck out 1 in the 9th.
- The Redbirds beat up on some old familiar faces in Randy Kiesler and Andy Cavazos.
- Shane Robinson was 2-for-4. He’s hitting .418 on the year thus far.
- Jon Jay was 2-for-3 with a double.
- Mark Hamilton went 0-for-2 but drew a pair of walks.
- In his last outing Jaime Garcia went 8 innings and threw 100 pitches. That didn’t bother me so much because he was largely in control and his pitches per inning weren’t that high. He was cruising. But to see him throw 109 pitches in tonight’s outing after the last effort . . . . . it’s absolutely ridiculous. There is no justification for allowing a young talented left-hander who had an elbow “sprain” that cost him the last 8 weeks of the season to rack up these kinds of pitch counts. Depraved indifference. He threw 6 innings allowing 2 runs (1 earned) with 2 hits, 4 walks and 7 Ks. He still has yet to allow an XBH this season.
- Luke Gregerson picked up the 2 innings save allowing 2 hits and striking out 2.
Palm Beach 4, St. Lucie 6 (14 Innings)
- Tyler Henley was 3-for-7 and a SB.
- Steve Hill was 1-for-5 with a pair of walks.
- Tony Cruz was 1-for-6 with a walk and a HR.
- 4 errors for PB tonight: 2 for Oliver Marmol, 1 for David Kopp and 1 for Steve Hill.
- David Kopp was excellent in relief of Kyle Mura (who wasn’t bad — 4 innings, 3 runs, 2 earned). He threw 4 innings walking 1 and striking out 1 with no hits. 9 of the 11 outs were via the ground.
- Jon Mikrut and Marco Gonzalez both threw a pair of scoreless innings before Francisco Samuel allowed 3 runs in the 14th on a walkoff HR.
- Adron Chambers went 2-for-4.
- Pete Kozma continues to rake going 2-for-4 with a double. Unfortunately his line was tempered with his 6th error.
- 1B Osvaldo Morales went 2-for-3 with a homerun.
- Blake King has no idea where the ball is going after it leaves his hand. Tonight that meant he allowed 1 hit and 1 unearned run while striking out 8 and walking 5 with a wild pitch. He’ll never make it past AA without some kind of control.
- Jonathan Stambaugh threw 4 solid innings allowing 2 hits and striking out 3 against 1 walk. The scoreless outing lowered his ERA to 6.62, so he needed it.
Filed under: Daily Farm Reports
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
Hey, Az. Got a question. I know that Boggs is supposed to be a strong, durable guy, but I’ve got to know, what was his pitch count in that 79 inning outing?
Those stats on Garcia are mindblowing. 109 pitches?! Surely Luhnow and co. will step in on that…
I expect Memphis and Springfield’s records to keep improving… particularly once Garcia hits AAA… both those clubs are playing far below where they’ll end up. Would be very exciting to have four winning clubs in the system.
Red Baron: maybe your eyes are playing tricks on you - I don’t see anything about 79 innings…
Was Dusty Baker coaching Springfield yesterday?
I think you’re overstating the significance of these pitch counts. Aside from the usual Baseball Prospectus stuff, see Craig Wright’s findings listed here:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/otb/pitcher_usage_old.php
In particular:
“For ages twenty to twenty-two, they should AVERAGE no more than 105 pitches per start for the season (105 pitches is roughly equivalent to 30.0 BFS). A single-game ceiling should be set at 130 pitches.”
the worse part about garcia’s game was that he was at 95 pitches after 6 with a very tidy line of 6 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K, but pop warner decided it was a good idea to send him out there for the 7th. he went out and walked the first two then got yanked. no reason for sending him out there for the 7th.
Kozma also stole a base. I know it’s early, but he is severely outplaying most of the guys taken before him in the draft. I hope he stays in Quad the rest of the season to build his confidence, and possibly eek his way into the top 50 prospects discussion at Baseball America.
Thanks for the link, Greenie–and I hope Wright’s findings apply to Jaime Garcia. However, coming off his truncated 2007 season, I would’ve expected extra organizational caution with our talented southpaw…especially for the first month or two of the season. On the other hand, with Garcia pitching with an extra day of rest, I can see how Warner rationalized sending him to the mound to begin the 7th inning. (No way to reasonably rationalize Wainwright’s 126 the other day, though. Sigh.)
If Kozma can put up a line of, say, .300/.370/.440 this year (provided his defensive reviews and BB/K/AB ratios remain solid), I’d definitely have him in my top 50, maybe as high as the 35-40 range. And if his OPS is in the .860-.880 territory, he’d be top 25 or so. Keep it up, Pete!
Surprisingly Boggs’ pitch count was only at 237. The other team swung at the first pitch a lot.
BABIP against Boggs has really fallen this year from ridiculous levels in years past. I wonder if it is a change he has made or if we are seeing a regression to the mean. His k% is in line with past results and he is walking less batters but mostly he seems to be finding more gloves than holes this year. Might have something to do with better defense at the higher level.
Isn’t it fair to say, that at this point in the season, pitchers arms are the most fresh? I understand building stamina, but shouldn’t they be to the point where they are streteched out 100 percent. I’d rather pitchers throw 100+ pitches in late April and May than in the last month of the season when they are running on fumes.
I am in the same camp with Bob here - throwing 100+ pitches by itself isn’t necessarily bad, I just hoped that they would be more careful after having to shut Garcia down early last season.
maybe the day off will do rasmus some good…i’m ready for a 3-5 breakout day
As roarke and Bob pointed out, it’s not the 109 pitches in isolation. It’s that a) Garcia missed time with an elbow strain last season and b) he’d thrown 100 pitches in his last outing. Neither outing in isolation is necessarily a problem. Outings like that back to back with someone who was injured (and threw several games with discomfort before being shut down) seems like an awfully irresponsible idea.
I think what gets me riled up is that the same thing is happening at the major league level with guys like Wainwright and McClellan. I’m not sure there’s enough attention paid to usage patterns in the organization.
could this pitcher usage be an adjustment that is being employed organization wide (except the piggyback I guess) reflecting the new instructor that was present in spring training? I can’t remember the guys name (someone will pick me up I am sure) - but there was an emphasis on finding that natural motion, that pure form, with each individual pitcher having his own motion that offers the least stress on the body. Is ’stretching out’ the pitcher for longer outings part of this philosophy? Not suggesting it is, just asking if anyone knows….
I believe Brent Strom is the name you were thinking of.
cdb,
I was wondering the same thing. They called it “classic mechanics”.
I know it’s a tough balance between getting your prospects truly ready for a big league workload and protecting your assets. My thing is that, no matter where you stand on that spectrum, you’d think we’d all agree that Garcia probably warrants a little more guarded approach than just about anybody else. If not for the whole season, at least for the first month or 2 of the season. No?
I’m perfectly content to just see Garcia get through the season healthy. Hold back on him, just a little. And then next year you can give him a full fledged audition in AAA with an eye towards a promotion if all goes well.
Seems like the reasonable approach, but also seems like he’s being pushed aggressively right out of the gate. I hope he holds up well late summer.
Garcia was cruising through six and deserved to come out for the seventh. I like the move, and hope to see a complete game from him before the end of the season.
Is Tyler Greene really healthy? I think his knee is not fully healed and his average is certainly showing it.
237? Wow. That is an efficient 80 inning outing. Get that man up here; he’ll solve all of our problems.
NASA - Garcia already had a complete game during his last outing. It was a loss though.
I haven’t heard anything about Greene’s knee but he’s driving everything into the ground. His GB% is way up and his LD% is way down to the point that his BABIP is at .226 and is pretty much on target. Something in his swing would seem to be off right now (or so the stats would suggest) but he’s yet to show the ability to hit for average in his pro career.
Bryan Anderson was promoted to AAA.
Here s an interesting article on Wainright’s 125 pitch count and comments from TLR.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-pitchcount042708&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
great news. he definitely earned it.
Molina better start hitting.
The more I think to Molina’s contract, the more I believe that is made to make him tradeable to make room for Anderson.
GO CARDS!!!