Link Report for Thurs. 7/1 -- First Time in 2010: Brewers play, plus all seven affiliates

[And That]

Nice to see Cody Hawn back in the lineup for Helena, albeit at DH.

 

Odorizzi is a pitching monster.

[Mass Haas]

So he left before the pitcher even made a move towards home? If it was that then yeah that is not smart baserunning at all. With 3-2 and 2 outs you are suppose to berunning but you can't leave early like that if that was the case.

 

He left too early, and the pitcher saw him take off and stepped off to trap him in a rundown.

 

You only run on 3-2 with two outs if it's a force play, this wasn't.

 

[battlekow]

Final: Billings 4, Helena 0

Helena box score

The H-Crew's hot bats were cooled off by 12 strikeouts from the Mustangs' staff. Cody Hawn and John Bivens each had two hits (one of Hawn's a double), but the rest of the Helena batters combined for only one more. Bivens drew a walk, as did Greg Hopkins and Mike Walker. Both Johnny Dishon and Franklin Romero fanned thrice as part of 0-4 efforts. Starter Tyler Cravy allowed four runs, three earned, in six innings, giving up seven hits, walking two, and striking out three. Chad Robinson tossed 1.2 scoreless innings in relief before leaving with what Steve speculated was yet another shoulder injury. Sounded like Robinson was in significant pain. I'm a little confused by Carlos George continuing to play shortstop with Shea Vucinich, supposedly a fine defender, on the team. As we're all well aware, and as I beat somewhat to death earlier this year when George and Scooter Gennett were keystone partners, George is not exactly a defensive wizard.

 

Helena play-by-play

The Brewers' best chance to score came in the 8th:

 

Helena Top 8th

• John Bivens singles on a line drive to
  left fielder Theo Bowe.
• With Tony Pechek batting, John Bivens
  steals (1) 2nd base.
• Tony Pechek grounds out, third baseman
  Oliver Santos to first baseman Jonathan Kaskow.
• Carlos George
  singles on a ground ball to pitcher Blaine Howell. John Bivens to
  3rd.
• John Dishon grounds into double play, third baseman
  Oliver Santos to second baseman Billy Hamilton to first baseman Jonathan
  Kaskow. Carlos George out at 2nd.

[Mass Haas]

To lighten the load this evening, please enjoy a two-part Stu Paul Nashville interview with the amazing Famous San Diego Chicken, now in his 36th year and fifth decade of visiting Nashville and other outposts.

 

This is one dude that won't collapse like Iron Man did in Appleton last week.

 

Chat with the Famous San Diego Chicken (parts I and II)

Wonderful trivia you'd never imagine about Nick Swisher and Tony Gwynn, Jr.

 

A must-listen, thanks for grabbing him, Stu.

 

Plus, Stu returns to the blogosphere.

[battlekow]

Final: Chattanooga 4, Huntsville 1 (15 innings)

Huntsville box score

Not sure if the lateness will prevent Chad & co. from putting up a recap tonight, so I'll go ahead and do a mini one. There's good detail on the goings-on in the posts above; suffice to say, this was not a pretty defeat. Brett Lawrie was 2-5 (again, both his came off a lefty, albeit a very good one in Aaron Miller) with two walks, one of the walks being of the unintentional intentional sort at the hands of another lefty. Lorenzo Cain was 3-7 with a double, and Zelous Wheeler was 2-7 with a solo shot, his seventh. Chuckie Caufield also had two

hits and walked once. Caleb Gindl had a bit of a tough night, 0-5 with three strikeouts, though he did walk once and laid down a sac bunt. Josh Butler started and turned in his best performance of the year, allowing just an unearned run in six innings on three hits, hitting a batter, walking none and fanning three. He also posted an outstanding 11/2 ground out/air out ratio. Robert Hinton struck out four in two scoreless innings while allowing just a single; it sounded like he was flashing the great stuff that made him a nice relief prospect once upon a time. Nick Green also pitched well for three innings before running out of gas in the 15th.

 

Huntsville play-by-play

Here's the winning rally from the Lookouts:

 

Chattanooga Top 15th

• Jessie Mier doubles (6) on a
  ground ball to right fielder Caleb Gindl.
• Elian Herrera out on
  a sacrifice bunt, third baseman Zelous Wheeler to first baseman Steffan
  Wilson. Jessie Mier to 3rd.
• Nick Green intentionally walks
  Dee Gordon.
• Coaching visit to mound.
• With Eduardo
  Perez batting, throwing error by Nick Green on the pickoff attempt,
  Jessie Mier scores.
• Eduardo Perez singles on a ground ball to
  right fielder Caleb Gindl. Dee Gordon to 3rd.
• With Jerry
  Sands batting, Eduardo Perez steals (5) 2nd base.
• Jerry Sands
  called out on strikes.
• Corey Smith doubles (23) on a line
  drive to center fielder Lorenzo Cain. Dee Gordon scores. Eduardo
  Perez scores.
• Andrew Lambo lines out to left fielder Chuck
  Caufield.

And here's the Stars coming up empty twice against starting third baseman Corey Smith (who, you'll notice above, knocked in two insurance runs in between mound turns):

 

Huntsville Bottom 14th

• Defensive Substitution:
  Eduardo Perez replaces pitcher Cole St. Clair, batting 2nd, playing
  third base.
• Pitcher Change: Corey Smith replaces Cole St.
  Clair, batting 4th, replacing pitcher Corey Smith.
• Dayton
  Buller walks.
• Nick Green strikes out on foul bunt.
• Brett
  Lawrie flies out to center fielder Elian Herrera.
• Lorenzo
  Cain flies out to center fielder Elian Herrera.

Huntsville Bottom 15th

• Caleb Gindl
  flies out to left fielder Andrew Lambo.
• Zelous Wheeler lines
  out to center fielder Elian Herrera.
• Steffan Wilson walks.
• Chuck
  Caufield strikes out swinging.

[Mass Haas]

Catcher Michael Melillo has been on the Helena roster since Day One, but has yet to appear in a game. That's why when Brent Dean got nicked up, they brought Gerald Ogrinc up from Maryvale to back up Tony Pechek.

 

Maybe the only two sentences you'll see all season with the names of all four Helena catchers squished in...

[Mass Haas]

By the way, we may have to poke around to learn about Taylor Green, but he was conspicuously absent in Huntsville tonight after leaving Wednesday's doubleheader opener with an unknown injury. Perhaps something was mentioned in the early stages of the broadcast...

[Mass Haas]

No details till morn, but suffice it to say the Maryvale Crew will no longer be undefeated when you read about it...until then., g'night.

[Mass Haas]

Final: Arizona Mariners 15, Arizona Brewers 1

Maryvale kids fall to 8-1...

 

Arizona Brewers Box ScoreWell, if you're finally going to lose, do so in a big way rather than the pull-your-hair-out methods of the Rattlers and Stars tonight; the three Brewer pitchers struck out 12 Mariners, but walked nine, hit two batters, and threw five wild pitches -- on the flip side, Seattle's hurlers fanned 13 and didn't issue any free passes; after two excellent long relief appearances, RHP Jose Oviedo made his first start of 2010, and allowed five runs in 3.2 innings; give credit to 28th round pick LHP Dane Amedee for stranding three of Oviedo's runners to end the 4th, but then Amedee was roughed up for six earned runs in 1.2 innings (four walks) and watched as his final two runs allowed came in after leaving the game for RHP Jose Sanchez, who was charged with three runs of his own but managed to use up the garbage time at the end (3.2 innings) -- all three pitchers had done well in Maryvale so far in their first one or two desert outings, although Sanchez was rocked in a brief two-game trial at Wisconsin earlier...

 

Trailing 4-0 in the bottom of the 1st, the A-Team actually opened their offensive night with three singles, although Kenny Allison was out stretching his at second base; there would be 11 Brewer hits on the night -- Demetrius McKelvie's double would be the lone extra-base knock as the boys stranded ten; high schooler Kevin Berard got the start behind the plate and went half the game in the 110 degree heat -- his only other start was at second base; Allison was 3-for-4, as noted earlier in the thread; 2B Nick Shaw was 2-for-3 and the other Shaw, LF Derrick, was 2-for-4; T.J. Mittelstaedt with the golden sombrero, 0-for-4, four K's...

 

Here's another one of those "he left the game early, let's keep an eye on him" situations -- 3B Justin Parker exited after just two innings -- related to the heat perhaps?

 

Arizona Brewers Game Log

[Mass Haas]

Stars Fall in Fifteen

 

It took five scoreless extra frames Thursday night before the Chattanooga Lookouts deemed themselves worthy of victory. Chattanooga ended a ten inning scoreless streak by plating three in the fifteenth in a 4-1 win over Huntsville.

 

Neither starting pitcher figured in the decision, despite solid outings. Aaron Miller allowed only one Stars run, a fourth inning Zelous Wheeler home run (audio link), on five hits. He struck out five Huntsville batters. Josh Butler put together his second straight strong outing, working six complete innings. Butler struck out three while the opposition did not draw a single walk. The only run allowed was unearned.

 

After four Huntsville pitchers, Nick Green entered his fourth inning in the fifteenth. Jessie Mier was the first to greet him with a double which was followed with a sac bunt. Mier scored on an errant pickoff attempt by Green (audio link) and the floodgates were open. Eddie Perez and Corey Smith (audio) followed with hits and scored before the inning came to a close.

 

Green threw 59 pitches in his trip out of the pen.

 

With the series tied at two games apiece, Huntsville hosts game five Friday at 7:00 CDT. All Stars games are streamed live at www.huntsvillestars.com.

[Mass Haas]

Here are the Brewer-relevant portions of the Billings Gazette game story, full article at the link --

 

Jefry Sierra’s RBI single and Oliver Santos’ run-scoring groundout lifted the Mustangs to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Sierra followed with his second RBI single for a 3-0 lead in the fifth and Kaskow capped the scoring with his blast in the sixth off of RHP Tyler Cravy, an opposite field shot to left that barely stayed fair and that just cleared the fence.

“I couldn’t see real good because the sun was down there so I was just kind of running and someone said it was (a home run), so I was like, ‘Great,’ ” Kaskow said with a laugh.

Great glove work by the Mustangs’ infield helped preserve the shutout in the eighth inning. With Brewers standing on first and third with one out, Billings third baseman Santos fielded a sharp grounder by John Dishon and fired the ball to second baseman Billy Hamilton. Hamilton made a quick pivot, and though his throw didn’t make it all the way to first, Kaskow made a swipe scoop of the long bounce to end the inning and the Brewers’ only real threat of the night.

The three Mustangs pitchers struck out 12 Helena batters.

“The last couple days the guys have really thrown the ball well,” Mustangs manager Delino DeShields said. “They’ve had a game plan, and they’ve executed it very well on the mound. That’s where it all starts for us, with the pitching. So those guys are really stepping it up right now.”

NOTES: Helena reliever Chad Robinson appeared to injure his pitching shoulder after delivering a pitch in the eighth inning. He fell to the mound, and after a short time, walked to the dugout, trying not to move his arm. … The game was played in 1 hour, 59 minutes, already the second sub-two hour game of the season for the Mustangs.

 

***

 

Robinson already missed significant chunks of his young career with prior shoulder surgery -- you have to feel for the young man.

[Mass Haas]

VIDEO:

Billings highlights (Helena lowlights), including the tough-to-turn double play described above, are found in the video here.

 

***

 

Photos by PAUL RUHTER/Billings Gazette Staff

John Bivens of Helana steals second base past Billy Hamilton during the eighth inning on Thursday, July 1, 2010 at Dehler Park. The Mustangs won the game 4-0.

 

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/billingsgazette.com/content/tncms/assets/editorial/0/0e/b37/00eb37cb-3225-526d-8dba-7d800e9eed4e-revisions/4c2d7e217d841.image.jpg

 

Theo Bowe of the Mustangs is tagged by Carlos George while trying to steal second base during the first inning.

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/billingsgazette.com/content/tncms/assets/editorial/2/1f/fd7/21ffd701-ef88-5503-ac61-c3f8463bd825-revisions/4c2d7e0e587db.image.jpg

 

Billy Hamilton makes a throw to first base for a double-play after tagging out Carlos George of Helena near second base to end the top of the eighth inning.

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/billingsgazette.com/content/tncms/assets/editorial/7/68/c1c/768c1c2b-9e6d-5fc7-8510-7e9b765f234e-revisions/4c2d7e2440399.image.jpg

 

[Mass Haas]

Stephen C. Smith's site has a full audio game archive of Wednesday's Manatees victory and he makes this notation --

 

FUN FACT: The Manatees are 6-1 in 2010 in the games webcast by SpaceCoastBaseball.com.

 

***

 

Reminder as a favor and a thanks to Stephen -- this means you, Manatee player families http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

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