Link Report for Wed. 4/13 -- Peralta fans nine, walks none in dominant outing

[Mass Haas]

Eric Schultz of the Huntsville Times' Photo Gallery includes this Wily shot --

 

http://media.al.com/huntsville-times/photo/9484885-standard.jpg

[Mass Haas]

Stars lead off home schedule with victory over Carolina

By Mark McCarter, The Huntsville Times

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- First man up, Lee Haydel has a simple but difficult task.

"You want to set the pace for the game," he said.

Mission accomplished on Wednesday night, when the Huntsville Stars opened their home schedule. Four pitches into the Stars' first inning, Haydel singled to ignite a five-run explosion, pacing Huntsville to a 6-5 win over the Carolina Mudcats.

The Stars host Carolina Thursday night at 6:43 in the second game of this five-game homestand.

Stars manager Mike Guerrero describes what he looks for in a lead-off man just as simply.

"A guy that consistently gets on base," he said.

Does Haydel fit that?

"So far he does."

Haydel is 7-for-20 on the season and has reached base 11 times in 24 plate appearances.

Haydel, a 23-year-old from La Place, La., with a gumbo-flavored accent, is back for his second year with the Stars. He batted .285 last season and stole 22 bases.

The return to Class AA doesn't bother him, as he considered last year a learning season.

"I understand it's a long road and a lot of time you will repeat," said Haydel, sporting a smear of red clay across his uniform top. "I have no problem being here. Double-A is a good league. With my age, I'm not really young, but I'm not really old either, so it's OK."

"He has things to work on and he's working on them," Guerrero said. "He's improved in a lot of areas and he has plenty of space to grow in the others."

The Carolina starter was Daryl Thompson, who will be destined to live eternally in pregame press notes accompanied by this anecdote: During a brief stint in the majors with Cincinnati, headed to Yankee Stadium for his debut he took the No. 4 train the wrong direction, winding up in Brooklyn rather than the Bronx.

This appearance started off in the wrong direction, Huntsville mugging him for five runs in the first, ten men coming to the plate. Steffan Wilson, Chuckie Caufield and Juan Sanchez had run-scoring hits.

Huntsville starter Wily Peralta was on cruise-control into the fifth, retiring the first 13 men he faced. The Mudcats, now 1-5 on the season, cut it to 6-2 on a Cody Puckett RBI single in the fifth and an opposite field homer by Neftali Soto in the top of the seventh; one batter later, Peralta exited to a warm ovation.

"(A five-run lead) gives you the cushion to say, 'I've got to pound the strike zone,' " Guerrero said of Peralta, who "has the ability to command the strike zone with three pitches."

Sixth game of the season, some of the butterflies should well be gone.

"It kinda felt like Opening Night a little bit," Haydel said, "but you just go out there and do what you've got to do to do your job.

"It was fun, though."

[Mass Haas]

The Tennessean has a photo gallery from Wednesday's game, notice there is a "show / hide captions" button to the lower left of the photo. The gallery appears on the same page as a feature written on Oklahoma's Koby Clemens.

[Mass Haas]

Sounds top Redhawks 6-1 in error-plagued contest

By William Williams, Nashville City Paper

Brett Carroll couldn’t really laugh at Anderson Hernandez’s blunder.

That’s because Carroll, a center fielder for the Nashville Sounds, had been there — just two batters before and he almost ended up with a mouthful of grass.

It was that sort of zany Wednesday afternoon at Greer Stadium as the Sounds grabbed a 6-1 victory in a five-error game that including four miscues from the visiting Oklahoma City Redhawks.

The odd thing is both teams had been fielding pretty solidly prior to Wednesday. The Redhawks (2-4) had committed just five errors. The Sounds (5-2) — who wrap up an eight-game homestand Thursday with a 7:05 p.m. matchup against Oklahoma City — had just four coming into the day game.

In fairness, the afternoon tilt was only 14 hours after a twilight doubleheader ended on Tuesday night after Monday’s game was postponed due to rain.

“It was a late night [Tuesday],” Sounds manager Don Money said. “And you have a 12 o’clock game [Wednesday] and everybody is a little down, dragging a little bit. You know those kind of games happen.”

The first error came at the expense of Carroll, a Middle Tennessee State grad and eight-year veteran who the Milwaukee Brewers picked up in a trade with the Kansas City Royals two weeks ago. In the second inning, Oklahoma City’s Tommy Manzella lofted a fly ball to center field. Carroll backed up to make the catch, but adjusted to the flight of the ball too late. The ball glanced off his glove and Manzella raced all the way to third on the error.

“I went right and the ball started fading back to my left side and I got turned around,” Carroll, who spent the last seven years in the Florida Marlins organization, said. “When you start moving like that, your head starts moving and I almost fell on my face.”

Hernandez reached first safely on a ground ball to third, in which the throw went home to try to get Manzella but he slid in safely to give the Redhawks a 1-0 lead. Carroll, a Knoxville native, would redeem himself on the next play — at the expense of Hernandez.

With one out, Oswaldo Navarro flied to center and this time Carroll made the routine grab. As he made the catch, though, his teammate and right fielder Brendan Katin yelled for him to throw to first base.

Why? Hernandez had rounded second as Carroll made the grab. Carroll made the easy throw to first base to double off Hernandez and end the inning with the unusual 8-3 putout.

“I think he was doing me a favor. He felt sorry for the ball I botched in center field and he thought, ‘I’ll give you an out here to make up for it,’ ” Carroll joked. “I asked [Katin] later on ‘What was going on?’ He was like ‘I think he forgot the [number of] outs.’ That is what I figured because it wasn’t a shallow fly ball or something he thought was going to drop. I just think he had a little brain collapse like we always do. We’re prone to do that.”

Hernandez, however, wasn’t mistake-free. The second baseman botched a routine groundout in the fourth.

Hernandez wasn’t alone, though. In the seventh, first baseman Koby Clemens, the son of former seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens, dropped a foul ball that he had to chase up the line. That kept the at-bat of Sounds catcher Martin Maldonado alive.

Maldonado later struck out swinging for the second out, and the Redhawks threw down to second to try to catch Brandon Boggs stealing. Oklahoma City had him in a rundown but the Redhawks forgot about Carroll, who was on third. Boggs stalled long enough to allow Carroll to score the Sounds’ sixth run.

“I don’t know what happened on their side,” Money said of the weird play of events for Oklahoma City. “I’m glad it did, and not [to] us.”

But the craziest play yet was in the sixth inning and once again involved Carroll. The 28-year-old led off with what appeared to be a routine grounder to third base. Navarro went to scoop it up but couldn’t grip the ball as it sputtered out of his glove for an error. As he went to pick it up a second time with his glove, he flipped it up so high that it flew onto the other side of the diamond near foul territory.

Carroll never stopped running, racing to second. He didn’t stop there as he realized Navarro had ventured away from third base. Carroll took a chance and slid in safely to third, just beating the tag.

He scored on the very next play to tie the game when Boggs singled to center. Maldonado knocked in Boggs for the go-ahead run with a double down the right field line.

“That is an oddball one,” Money said of Navarro’s two-error play.

Added Carroll: “That’s the beauty of this sport. It kind of keeps you coming back because you never know what to expect.”

Except Wednesday was anything but beautiful.

[Mass Haas]

Huntsville TV station with game highlights and Manager Mike Guerrero's post-game interview

[uwisfan]

any word on Rogers' velocity?

[tstads20]

Randy Johnson was 29 before he got his pitches under control... Nolan Ryan was in his 30s before he was under 5BB/9IP...

Right, I guess IMO the importance for Rogers to throw strikes s that he hasn't shown to be as durable as either of those guys, although Unit had his fair share of injuries. We'll see how his season goes, as long as he's healthy it should be a productive one.

 

And wow on Peralta, talk about a guy taking a step further.

[DHonks]

Also, keep in mind that those minor league gametrackers aren't necessarily based on computer and cameras, but by a human entering pitch location. I've seen some where it calls it a strike 3 looking but shows it way out of the zone.