The theme of Tuesday’s slate of games was “quite a bit of offense, but not enough.” Starting pitching struggled, and even everyone pitching in at the plate wasn’t enough for Worcester and Portland… but it was plenty for Greenville and Salem, who had the help of solid defense. Let’s get into it.
It was a good night at the plate for the WooSox. The two-through-five hitters combined to go 9 for 20, with Kristian Campbell chipping in with three hits as his season OPS rises over .700. (He did, however, commit a throwing error in right field.) Even the bottom two hitters in the lineup, Vinny Capra and Matt Thaiss, each got a home run. Note Mikey Romero, who still has a batting average well over .300. And Sogard and Gasper continue to get on base at the top of the lineup.
But the team could not surmount some rough waters churned up by T.J. Sikkemma and Jacob Webb to start the game, as they very quickly found themselves in a 7-2 hole that was impossible to climb back from, especially following Noah Song’s three-run blown save. Columbus (Guardians AAA) had eight hits with runners in scoring position (and twenty-five opportunities to do so) so Tuesday was just a matter of the other team getting on the basepaths earlier in the inning and using their opportunities better.
It was opening day in Portland. Great! The Sea Dogs’ Hayden Mullins, Jorge Juan and Cade Feeney gave up ten runs to their neighbors from New Hampshire (Jays AA) in the second inning and saw fourteen batters come to the plate while throwing four wild pitches between the three of them. Definitely not great.
Miguel Bleis did have his first home run of the season, but that only cut the lead to 12-6. Patrick Halligan had seven strikeouts and allowed just one hit and a walk in three innings of relief and Max Carlson struck out five more in his two innings of work, but he was only in the game that long because of the prior pitching meltdown. Still, it is good to see some members of the organization turn early struggles around and remind us all that a small sample size is just that… cough cough… I hope?
No one went hungry and hitless Tuesday in Hub City (Rangers High-A) as every single member of the Drive chipped in at least one knock even if they struck out fourteen times. It did take until the sixth for the Drive to sling a run on the board, but the offense came in spades when it finally emerged. Shea Sprague left with a 2-0 deficit despite pitching three clean innings following the first, but Jojo Ingrassia had three innings of hitless baseball and Shane Ehrlicher had his first save of the season.
While the Red Sox sweated out a W against the Brewers’ Major League club, the RidgeYaks cruised to a win against their Single-A counterparts thanks to plenty of knocks in the third and fourth frames, putting this one out of doubt pretty quickly behind some solid, if not short, pitching from last year’s sixth-round draft pick Leighton Finley. Catcher Kleighver Salazar had a monster day at the plate, going 4-for-5 with two doubles. It is funny how much getting runners on the basepaths early in the inning and converting those runners when they get into scoring position can affect the outcome of a game … but of course, I’m just speaking out loud here.
Have a pleasant Wednesday!
