Link Report for Games of Saturday, April 29th

[Mass Haas]

Brevard County Site Game Summary:

 

Manatees hold off Mets

 

Yovani Gallardo tossed six strong innings as visiting Brevard County defeated St. Lucie, 3-1, on Saturday.

 

Gallardo (2-2) allowed four hits and a walk while striking out six to lower his ERA to 1.69. The 20-year-old right-hander retired the first eight batters he faced and did not give up a hit until Shawn Bowman lined a ground-rule double with two outs in the fourth.

 

Bo Hall kept the shutout intact through the eighth, but Josh Alliston surrendered a two-out RBI single to Corey Coles in the ninth before getting Jose Coronado to fly out for his fourth save.

 

Mets starter Chuck Smith (1-2) had control problems during his four-inning stint, yielding one run on two hits and four walks. He struck out five. William Vazquez followed with three scoreless innings, but Matt Lindstrom committed a throwing error in the eighth that allowed a pair of insurance runs to score.

 

Hernan Iribarren and Steven Sollmann had two hits apiece for Brevard County (15-8), which has won two of three following a four-game losing streak.

 

Coles and Joshua Petersen each contributed two hits for St. Lucie (13-9), which suffered its third straight loss.

 

The teams meet again at 1:00 PM (12:00 Central) on Sunday. -- Daren Smith/MLB.com

[Mass Haas]

Huntsville Site Game Summary:

 

Link while active, text follows --

 

www.huntsvillestars.com/n...newsId=803

 

Smokies Take Advantage of Stars' Mistakes

 

Miguel Montero?s two-run single snapped a scoreless tie and highlighted a six-run sixth inning rally that carried Tennessee to a 6-2 victory over Huntsville on a cool, drizzly night at Joe Davis Stadium. The Smokies won for a second time in three games in the series to improve to 11-12, while the Stars dropped to 13-10 after committing a season-high three errors.

 

Tennessee starter Steven Jackson led off the sixth inning and reached base when shortstop Ozzie Chavez had his line drive hit off his glove and land in the outfield for an error. Danny Richar dropped a bunt to third base that was fielded by Adam Heether, who did not throw to first base after realizing that first baseman Greg Sain and second baseman Callix Crabbe were both standing on the bag. Alberto Gonzalez laid down a bunt that was fielded in front of the mound by Stars? starter Corey Thurman, who threw to third base to try to get Jackson but his throw was high and pulled Heether off the bag, which allowed the Smokies to load the bases. Montero then lined a 1-0 pitch into right field to score Jackson and Richar to give the visitors a 2-0 lead. Thurman wild pitched home another run, Jesus Cota singled home a run and scored on a Jarred Ball double and Phil Avlas chased home a run with a ground ball out to finish the largest scoring inning against the Stars this season.

 

Thurman suffered the loss after allowing the six runs, three earned, over six innings and fell to 1-2 on the season. He had allowed only one earned run over 21 2/3 innings in his first four starts. The right-hander struck out five and walked one in going six innings for a third time in five outings. Russ Rohlicek worked three scoreless innings, allowing two hits and fanning three.

 

Kennard Bibbs singled with one out in the sixth, to extend his hitting streak to a season-high four games, and scored when Steve Moss followed with his second home run of the season. Jackson then blanked the Stars over the next two innings to pick up his first win of the year in his longest outing of the season. The right-hander fanned seven and walked one and ended three of his innings with a strike out. Doug Slaten gave up a leadoff double to Drew Anderson and walked Heether to open the ninth but retired the next three hitters to end the game. Moss finished 1-for-4 and extended his hitting streak to ten games, while Crabbe picked up one hit in four tries and pushed his hit streak to five games.

 

The series continues Sunday afternoon when the Smokies will send right-hander Ross Ohlendorf to the mound against Stars right-hander Matt Yeatman, who makes his first start of the season. Coverage of the game begins at 1:50 p.m. central time and can be heard locally on ESPN Radio 1450 AM and via the internet at www.huntsvillestars.com.

[brewmann04]

brewers pitchers are stepping up big Time

Dana looks grat so far

Gallardo has been lights out

Rodgers might have finally gotten Untracked.

[wibadgers23]

Gallardo's season stats -

2-2, 26.2 IP

1.69 ERA

38 SO, 7 BB

Wow, great start.

[Katuluu]

Remember when pitching was being overshadowed by the hitters and was viewed as a potential weak spot?

[brewmann04]

the pitchers seem to be catching up and there are a few very good ones comming up

[Mass Haas]

What they said: "He (Dana Eveland) pitched great. He struck out the side in the first and never lost command." ? Sounds pitching coach Stan Kyles.

 

"I was throwing three pitches for strikes, so that always helps. I had a few lucky breaks, throwing pitches down the middle occasionally and getting an out." -- Eveland, who pitched seven innings and allowed three hits with seven strikeouts.

 

Nashville's 2.91 ERA is the best in the Pacific Coast League.

[Mass Haas]

Link while active, text follows:

 

www.al.com/stars/huntsvil...amp;coll=1

 

Bad inning trips Stars

Huntsville loses after giving up all six runs in 6th inning

By SKIP VAUGHN

For The Huntsville Times, skipv@htimes.com

 

Sitting at his desk before Saturday night's game against the Tennessee Smokies, Huntsville Stars manager Don Money explained his team's recent good fortune. The Stars had won five of their previous six games.

 

"The pitching's been pretty decent for the most part," Money said. "Defense has been pretty solid. Knock on wood.

 

"Hitting - we haven't been knocking the ball around the yard, but we've been getting timely hits.

 

"That's what it takes - good pitching, defense and some timely hitting."

 

The Stars didn't have it in a 6-2 loss to the Smokies before an announced crowd of 1,042 at Joe Davis Stadium.

 

Huntsville's Corey Thurman and Tennessee's Steven Jackson waged a scoreless pitching duel through five innings.

 

But the Smokies struck for six runs in the sixth, including three unearned scores courtesy of two errors by the Stars. Miguel Montero had a two-run single and Jarred Ball had an RBI double against Thurman (1-2).

 

"Defense hurt us," Money said. "We had a couple of opportunities (on offense). Thurman - he pitched well enough to win, just a bad inning."

 

The Stars cut their deficit to 6-2 in the bottom of the sixth on Steve Moss' two-run homer, scoring Kennard Bibbs who had singled.

 

"It was a fastball in," Moss said of his second homer of the season.

 

"He (Jackson) started all the other guys off with fastballs that inning. He had a six-run lead. I just knew he was trying to get ahead of all the batters."

 

Jackson (1-2) went eight innings with seven strikeouts and allowed two runs, seven hits and one walk.

 

Thurman went six innings with five strikeouts and allowed six runs (three earned), six hits, one walk and had two wild pitches.

 

The Stars finished with three errors but matched the Smokies' eight hits.

 

Tennessee (11-12) and Huntsville (13-10) are scheduled to play again today at 2:05 p.m. at Joe Davis Stadium. Probable starters are the Smokies' Russ Ohlendorf (0-2, 3.38) and the Stars' Matt Yeatman (1-0, 0.73).

[Mass Haas]

David Weiser's

 

www.starsboxscore.com/

 

MELTDOWN

It was inevitable, but the Stars' defense which had destroyed the club record for the fewest errors after 20 games (eight) simply had a bad night, a 6th inning meltdown that cost the Stars their hold, albeit shared, on first place in the Northern Division of the Southern League.

 

Corey Thurman and Steven Jackson were locked in a scoreless duel after five innings. For Thurman, this seems pretty typical now. He had three runs of support in his first three starts before beating Mobile on April 23. Add 'em up now and it's nine runs in 27 2/3 innings over five starts....... The first of the Stars' three errors came in the 5th when Adam Heether committed his first of the year, dropping Agustin Murillo's slow grounder. It was a tough error because he had to come in on it, but I've seen Heether make tougher plays cleanly. But the two in a really sloppy 6th really hurt.

 

Thurman had held Tennessee to just one hit over five innings and it should have been an easy inning........ Leading off the 6th was the pitcher, Steven Jackson....... Jackson lined a 1-1 pitch that should have been caught by shortstop Ozzie Chavez, but it wound up going off his glove into left field instead, and Jackson was on first........ Things got worse. Danny Richar laid down a bunt. Thurman came over for it, as did Heether, but after some on-field confusion, Heether held the ball instead. Richar was given credit for a hit........ Next, Alberto Gonzalez chopped a ball to the left side of the infield. It was taken on the high hop by Thurman, who made a quick decision to try and get the lead runner, but his throw was high, and Heether came down on bag too late to get the runner, and the bases were now loaded........

 

Like a shark smelling blood, Miguel Montero, 2nd in the league in OPS and 10th in batting, lined a ball sharply to right, scoring the first two runs for the Smokies........ With Alex Frazier at bat, Thurman uncorked a 2-0 pitch that went back to the backstop, scoring Gonzalez from third, making it 3-0. On 3-and-1, Frazier lined a ball on one hop to right, moving Montero to third......... Jesus Cota then blooped a ball to right, falling in front of a charging Kennard Bibbs, and Montero scored to make it 4-0, all this coming before the Stars were able to record an out.

 

Thurman then retired Murillo on a deep fly to left and got Phil Avlas on a grounder, but Jarred Ball, the 9th man to come up, doubled down the right field line, clearing the bases. Jackson, at bat for the second time in the inning, struck out to end the suffering.

 

A cloudy, cool, and drizzly evening held the paid attendance to just over 1,000 after Friday night's season-high crowd of over 7,000. Better weather won't be on the way again until the Stars have gone on their next road trip to Jackson, Tennessee........ The forecast for Sunday is not as strong for rain as it was 24 hours ago, but it is very iffy.

 

Steve Moss put the Stars on the scoreboard with a two-run homer to the left of the big star used for advertising, just missing the third level of ads in left-center field. The home run extended his hitting streak to 10 games. Last night, speaking to Moss, he wasn't even aware he had a hitting streak going, but in any event, he's hitting at a .371 clip (13-for-35) with nine RBIs..

 

The Stars' newest pitcher, Russ Rohlicek, is looking for a car he can come and go in from the apartment to the stadium. Earlier in the year, I mentioned that Carlos Villanueva and his teammate Ozzie Chavez were looking for a car they could use for the season. They are still looking. And now I hear Joe Winkelsas is looking for a car........ If anyone in the area can help them out, e-mail Brett Pollock, the voice of the Stars, at brett@huntsvillestars.com

 

Dana Eveland pitched seven scoreless innings Saturday, giving up just three hits, en route to a 5-0 shutout victory over New Orleans. Eveland is now 2-0......... Yovani Gallardo, a pitcher we could see here this year, pitched six scoreless innings for Class A-Brevard County (Fla. St.) to lead the Manatees to a 3-1 victory over St. Lucie on the road. Gallardo gave up just four hits.

 

Sunday, if the weather cooperates, Matt Yeatman will make his first start for the Stars against Russ Ohlendorf (0-2, 3.38)......... Yeatman, whose 0.79 ERA at this point is one of the ten best April starts in Stars history, is being held to a pitch count, and will be fortunate if he goes more than four innings. He's being moved to the rotation replacing Jeff Housman, who is on the disabled list and will be out 3-4 weeks......

[Mass Haas]

Power-less Hoppers fall below .500

By Rob Daniels

Greensboro News-Record Staff Writer

 

GREENSBORO -- On second thought, the Grasshoppers would have preferred a strikeout Saturday night.

 

When Greg Burns failed to deliver a sacrifice bunt and instead hit an eighth-inning line drive, a base-running error and a fatal double play resulted and Greensboro absorbed a 2-0 defeat to the West Virginia Power.

 

The Hoppers (11-12) lost for the fourth time in five games and fell below .500 for the first time on the year.

 

"We play good some nights, and on others, we don't," manager Brandon Hyde said. "We've got to be more consistent in the way we approach things."

 

Trailing 2-0 after Lorenzo Cain's sixth-inning home run, the Hoppers got a leadoff single from Jared Gaston in the eighth.

 

Power pitcher Will Inman, of Dry Fork, Va., then hit Jonathan Fulton, who grew up only 16 miles away in Danville, Va., with a pitch and Greensboro was in business.

 

Greg Burns, who had struck out 27 times in 88 plate appearances, became the perfect candidate for a sacrifice bunt as he walked to the plate.

 

But two wayward attempts up the third-base line foiled that plan, and with two strikes against him, Burns swung away. He lined one toward the middle, and that became trouble when Gaston failed to dart back toward second immediately.

 

Shortstop Michael Bell made an easy catch and an unassisted double play. He briefly contemplated a throw to first to try for a triple play, but he decided against it.

 

No matter.

 

Considerable damage had been done.

 

The sequence was harmful to a Hoppers lineup that has scored one run in its past 17 innings. Although still leading the league in home runs, the Hoppers have failed to go deep in their past four games.

 

"We had chances in the eighth and the ninth and couldn't push anything across," Hyde said.

 

Cain, a 19-year-old Floridian who hit his first home run of the year in a 2-1 victory Friday night, deposited a Ryan Tucker offering onto Natty's Hill in left field.

 

Cain is 5-for-7 in the series and hitting .367 for the year -- good for sixth in the South Atlantic League.

 

But that was the only real downer for Tucker, who entered with 13 walks in 18 innings and a 5.40 ERA.

 

Tucker struck out seven Power hitters and walked only one on Saturday.

 

"His best start," Hyde said. "He threw strikes, challenged hitters and had a put-away slider. I thought he was outstanding."

 

Why the Grasshoppers lost: They managed just five hits off starter Rafael Lluberes Inman.

 

Performances worth noting: Hoppers -- Tucker allowed two runs and struck out seven in 5 2/3 innings. Power -- Cain went 2-for-4 and homered for the second straight night. ... Inman lowered his ERA to 0.95 with 2 1/3 scoreless innings.

 

Also worth noting: Between the third and fourth innings, Hoppers fan Ken Harper proposed to his girlfriend, Schala Webb. She said yes. ...

 

The big plays: A line-drive double play in the bottom of the eighth cut short the Hoppers' best chance. ... In the fourth, Tony Festa's liner down the right-field line was ruled foul. TV replays in the press box suggested it should have been a home run.