Link Report for Tuesday 6/19: Play Ball, Helena!

[Mass Haas]

http://www.brewerfan.net/images/store/dailylinkreport.jpg

[Mass Haas]

Tuesday's Daily Menu:

 

All times Central; pitchers subject to change --

 

Nashville: Idle

 

Huntsville: RHP Corey Thurman at Tennessee (Cubs), 6:00 PM pre-game; 6:15 gametime

 

Audio link:

www.huntsvillestars.com/

 

Brevard County: LHP Derek Miller at home vs. Vero Beach (Devil Rays), 5:50 PM pre-game, 6:00 gametime -- this series counts toward the first-half standings

 

Audio link (game will also archive at this link):

www.minorleaguebaseball.c.../audio.jsp

 

West Virginia: Video and audio available for the South Atlantic League All-Star Game at 6:05 PM -- game coverage will be featured not in the Link Report, but in the "Your 2007 W.V. Power Thread"

 

Video, audio and box score links, along with discussion, at the tail end of this thread:

p092.ezboard.com/fbrewers...mp;stop=40

 

Helena: TBD at Missoula (Diamondbacks), 7:55 PM pre-game, 8:05 gametime

 

Audio link (game will also archive at this link):

www.minorleaguebaseball.c.../audio.jsp

[Mass Haas]

Follow Tuesday's action as it happens:

Here's what you do, right click on each of the links below and choose "Open in New Window". Choose "Log". While you're listening to your minor league game of choice (or watching/listening to the big league Crew when they are playing), simply refresh your game log browsers every so often.

 

Huntsville:

 

www.minorleaguebaseball.c...x_tenaax_1

 

Brevard County:

 

www.minorleaguebaseball.c...a_breafa_1

 

Helena:

 

web.minorleaguebaseball.c...k_misrok_1

[Mass Haas]

These links will be included in each daily report when the Nashville Sounds and/or Huntsville Stars are scheduled to play. Normally they are updated an hour or two prior to gametime, with Nashville's usually earlier:

 

Huntsville Media Notes (Adobe .pdf format):

 

www.huntsvillestars.com/i...eNotes.pdf

[Mass Haas]

Standings through Monday's action:

South Atlantic League is final, but won't reset until Thursday...

 Pacific Coast League (AAA) - PCL American North Division Standings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Team W L PCT GB HOME ROAD STREAK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nashville 42 29 .592 - 25-10 17-19 W6 Iowa 40 30 .571 1.5 22-14 18-16 W1 Omaha 33 38 .465 9.0 24-12 9-26 L4 Memphis 32 40 .444 10.5 18-18 14-22 L1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Southern League (AA) - SOU North Division Standings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Team W L PCT GB HOME ROAD STREAK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chattanooga 1 0 1.000 - 1-0 0-0 W1 Huntsville 1 0 1.000 - 0-0 1-0 W1 Carolina 0 1 .000 1.0 0-0 0-1 L1 Tennessee 0 1 .000 1.0 0-1 0-0 L1 West Tenn 0 1 .000 1.0 0-1 0-0 L1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Florida State League (A+) - FSL East Division Standings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Team W L PCT GB HOME ROAD STREAK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brevard County 40 28 .588 - 23-11 17-17 W2 Palm Beach 34 34 .500 6.0 16-18 18-16 L2 Vero Beach 34 34 .500 6.0 24-12 10-22 L1 Daytona 32 35 .478 7.5 20-12 12-23 W1 St. Lucie 31 37 .456 9.0 17-17 14-20 W1 Jupiter 29 39 .426 11.0 14-20 15-19 L1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- South Atlantic League (A) - SAL Northern Division Standings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Team W L PCT GB HOME ROAD STREAK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- West Virginia 48 20 .706 - 23-12 25-8 W1 Greensboro 38 32 .543 11.0 25-10 13-22 L2 Lakewood 33 32 .508 13.5 17-18 16-14 W3 Delmarva 34 33 .507 13.5 19-13 15-20 L3 Lake County 31 39 .443 18.0 17-18 14-21 L1 Lexington 31 39 .443 18.0 16-19 15-20 W1 Hagerstown 29 38 .433 18.5 17-16 12-22 L1 Hickory 27 40 .403 20.5 14-16 13-24 L2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pioneer League (R+) - PIO North Division Standings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Team W L PCT GB HOME ROAD STREAK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Billings 0 0 - - 0-0 0-0 - Great Falls 0 0 - - 0-0 0-0 - Helena 0 0 - - 0-0 0-0 - Missoula 0 0 - - 0-0 0-0 -

[Mass Haas]

NOTE: The Arizona Rookie Brewers begin play Saturday.

[Mass Haas]

Link while active, text follows:

 

www.helenair.com/articles...619_01.txt

 

Brewers start season

By TOM COTTON - Helena Independent Record Sports Editor

 

Helena Brewers manager Jeff Isom knows his team can hit. What he is interested in seeing is if they can pitch and play defense.

 

The first-year manager of the Pioneer League affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers said how his team does this season will come down to how well the pitching staff holds up and how sure-handed the players behind them are.

 

?History has shown that the Helena Brewers have guys that can hit, we just have to hold teams down with our pitching,? said Isom, who joined the team after a highly successful stint managing in the Frontier and Northern independent leagues.

 

As of Monday, the Brewers pitching staff had 14 pitchers on its roster.

 

Isom said he will keep his pitchers on a pitch count and use tandems, with each hurler going three or four innings.

 

?We have some college guys who pitched 70, 80, 90 innings and we don?t want to overuse them,? he said.

 

One pitcher to keep an eye on is Donovan Hand, who was taken in the 14th round. He had seven wins and 82 strikeouts last season for Jacksonville State.

 

Brock Kjeldgaard returns after pitching 49 innings for Helena last season, as does Roque Mercedes. He won five games for Helena last year before pitching for Class A West Virginia to start this season.

 

In the bullpen, Matt Kretzschmar, Craig Langille and Max St. Pierre will be used to close out games. Kretzschmar pitched for Helena in 2005, before pitching for West Virginia last year.

 

St. Pierre can throw hard and was a catcher in the Detroit Tigers organization before being traded to Milwaukee and coverted to pitcher. Langille posted a 3.18 ERA in the Arizona League.

 

As usual, the Brewers have a solid collection of bats, led by three of Milwaukee?s top four draft picks in this year?s first-year player draft. Catcher Jonathan Lucroy, infielder Eric Farris and outfielder Caleb Gindl were selected in the third, fourth and fifth rounds, respectively.

 

Farris and Gindl both bring plenty of speed to the Brewers? lineup. Farris had 60 career stolen bases while at Loyola Marymount (Calif.). He can also hit for average, putting together a 25-game hitting streak this season.

 

Left-handed Gindl, is a high school prospect from Pace, Fla. and was named by Baseball America as its 56th-best high school prospect earlier this season.

 

Lucroy hit .360 with 18 home runs for Louisiana-Lafayette last season.

 

Another player to watch is Steffan Wilson, who played at Harvard. He hit .331 as a junior with a .416 percentage.

 

Isom said the Brewers don?t have the big power hitter, but they should be able to score plenty of runs. ?We are molding the team to play hard, be aggressive and force defenses to make a play,? he said.

 

The Brewers start the season tonight in Missoula with a three-game set against the Missoula Osprey before coming home Friday for the home opener against the Great Falls White Sox.

 

George Lane, Helena Independent Record Staff Photographer -

Helena Brewers manager Jeff Isom addresses his team during practice on Saturday. This is Isom?s first year with the Brewers.

 

http://www.helenair.com/content/articles/2007/06/19/sports_top/b010619_01.jpg

[Bambis Bombers]

The Stars and Smokies are washed out tonight - the Stars can't build on their second half division lead

[TheCrew07]

I was disappointed to see Mercedes starting opening day in Helena and he gave up a crooked number in the 2nd. I was hoping for Seidel or one of the DFEs maybe... someone I haven't seen a line on yet this year.

 

BC's pitching has been less than stellar early as well.

 

The good news is that BC is only down a couple in the 5th, and lots of time for the Helena crew to come back.

[TheCrew07]

Helena closes the gap to 1 after 5, tough 4th for the kid from Missoula, lots of walks and wild pitches.

 

BC still down 8-6 in the 6th. The gamelogs of the 4th and 5th are particularly disturbing.

[DHonks]

6 K's in 6 IP...good to see Mercedes can miss the bats of Rookie ballers

[And That]

Nice comeback by Helena in the top of the 9th. Newton with a jack and Gindl got a double and eventual go-ahead run. Matt Kretzschmar on for the save.

 

And Steve Wendt mentioned that Seidel would be going tomorrow, piggybacking with Baron.

[TheCrew07]

BC wins in the bottom of the 9th!

[And That]

Matt Kretzschmar loads the bases with no out, and then gets a strike out, a second strike out, and a ground out to pick up the save. Good drama at the end of the game, and congrats to your first place Helena Brewers! Woot!

[bthurley19]

Tommorows link report will look mighty nice seeing now all 5 minor league teams in first.

[Bambis Bombers]

Quote:

---

Tommorows link report will look mighty nice seeing now all 5 minor league teams in first.

---

 

Chattanooga wins tonight, so the Stars fall to 2nd, a half game behind

[SoCalBrewfan]

I was looking at the Brevard score and lamenting Cole Gillespie's batting average...then I looked at the splits and saw his home / away numbers:

 

H: .206 / .333&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp / .355&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp

A: .274 / .381&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp / .444

 

Brevard is a tough place to hit...that said, Errecart and Salome have been much better at home. So I don't know what to think.

[pogokat]

yeah, i've been as pro cole gillespie as you can be, but his numbers have been sliding all year...i think he's missed his chance to be promoted at this point...

[Mass Haas]

Helena Pre-Game Audio Chat with Manager Jeff Isom:

Make sure you're on the date for June 19th, then go to the 11:30 mark...

 

www.minorleaguebaseball.c.../audio.jsp

 

Final: Helena 4, Missoula (Diamondbacks) 3

 

Link while active, text follows:

 

www.missoulian.com/articl...orts01.txt

 

First-day jitters: Brewers use late rally to clip Osprey

By NICK LOCKRIDGE of the Missoulian

 

The biggest night in Osprey baseball history ended in one of its biggest disappointments.

 

The Helena Brewers scored twice in the top of the ninth to rally for a 4-3 victory over the defending Pioneer League champions Tuesday evening at Ogren-Allegiance Park.

 

Missoula's minor league baseball team packed a team-record 3,340 fans into its recently finished ballpark for opening night. The curious sell-out crowd was on hand to celebrate the completion of a decade-long dream and pay tribute to last year's championship.

 

It was all for naught.

 

The Osprey let a 3-2 lead slip away when Helena's Eric Newton led off the ninth with a solo home run off Missoula closer Luke Prihoda. Four batters later Caleb Gindl scored the winning run when a high fastball by Prihoda got by O's catcher Gerardo Bustamante.

 

?It's always disappointing, no matter how you lose,? said Damon Mashore, who was making his managerial debut with Missoula. ?A ball gets away from a guy. That's what rookie ball is about. But it's always disappointing to lose.?

 

The Osprey dropped their seventh consecutive season opener and are just 2-7 in openers since moving to Missoula in 1999. The Birds almost put together their own rally in the bottom of the ninth, loading the bases with no outs, before back-to-back strikeouts and a slow roller to first base ended things.

 

?It would have been nice to have put that through,? Mashore said. ?We battled and we came back. That's all I can ask for. You're not always going to get the hits.?

 

The Osprey, who had 12 hits in the game, appeared as though they might be the ones coming up big. Big like their crowd which seemed to swell as daylight dimmed. The O's drew 2,336 fans for their home opener last season and later topped it with a crowd of 2,387 on July 31.

 

First-year players like Reynaldo Navarro and Evan Scribner gave them something to cheer about. Navarro, a 17-year-old shortstop from the Dominican Republic, went 4-for-4 in his professional debut.

 

Scribner was in line for the victory after he held Helena at bay for four full innings. Scribner, a 28th round draft choice out of Central Connecticut State, sat down nine Brewers in order, including three flawless put-outs by Navarro. Scribner gave up a leadoff single in the eighth, but got out of the inning with a double play and one of his two strikeouts.

 

?He was outstanding,? Mashore said. ?And (Tom) Layne, for his first pro outing, he was amazing.?

 

Layne, the O's opening day starter, pitched just three innings before taking a seat on the bench. Layne didn't allow a single hit, while striking out seven Brewers.

 

Helena's Craig Langille got the win, pitching two scoreless innings in relief of Roque Mercedes. Missoula fans might remember Mercedes from last year, when he went 5-5 in a full season of Pioneer League play. Prihoda got the loss, as well as a blown save.

 

The Brewers scored twice in the fourth to narrow Missoula's lead to 3-2. Both runs - one on a walk and one on a wild pitch - scored when O's reliever Giornale Sena loaded the bases with two outs.

 

The O's jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second. A two-run single by Pete Clifford was the big hit. Bustamante added an RBI single in the frame.

 

Notes: Start time was 7:05 p.m., but the first pitch wasn't until 7:28. O's outfielder Ariel Urena turned a nice double play in the eighth when he caught a fly ball by Eric Farris and then threw out Helena's baserunner at first base.

 

Helena Box Score:

With the exception of Caleb Gindl, a definite college veteran tint to this lineup, although among the starting lineup, only Roque Mercedes did not make his pro debut in this game...

 

web.minorleaguebaseball.c...k_misrok_1

 

Helena Game Log:

 

web.minorleaguebaseball.c...k_misrok_1

 

Photo by MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian

Missoula Osprey's Eli Rumler attempts to break up a double play as he upends Helena shortstop David Fonseca on Tuesday night at Ogren-Allegiance Park. Fonseca managed to complete the double play.

 

http://images.townnews.com/missoulian.com/content/articles/2007/06/20/sports/sports01.jpg

[Mass Haas]

The Helena game's 9th inning KCAP audio begins at the 2 hour, 57 minute mark, be sure you're on the archive date of June 19th -- both the top and bottom of the inning had drama:

 

www.minorleaguebaseball.c.../audio.jsp

[gregmag]

Given Gillespie's age, I'd like to see them just get him the heck out of there. Pogo, I still think you've been right about him. He may not "deserve" promotion, but the question is whether promoting him is the best move for the organization, and I think it may be.

 

Greg.

[Mass Haas]

Final: Brevard County 9, Vero Beach (Devil Rays) 8

 

MiLB.com:

 

Manatees walk away with win

 

Ned Yost drew a bases-loaded walk to cap an improbable ninth-inning rally as Brevard County edged visiting Vero Beach, 9-8, on Tuesday.

 

Lorenzo Cain led off the ninth with a single and stole second. After retiring the next two batters, reliever Eddie De La Cruz (4-4) walked Cole Gillespie, hit Michael Bell and plunked Chris Errecart to force in the tying run. The 25-year-old right-hander walked Yost to give the Manatees their third straight win.

 

Angel Salome ripped a three-run homer, his fifth, in the first and Errecart had two doubles and two RBIs for Brevard County (41-28).

 

Manatees reliever Patrick Ryan (2-0) struck out two in two perfect innings for the win. Starter Derek Miller gave up five runs on four hits and two walks with three strikeouts in four frames.

 

Vero Beach starter Matthew Walker surrendered five runs -- four earned -- on four hits and four walks with three strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings.

 

Sergio Pedroza and Patrick Cottrell hit two-run homers and Aaron Sisk went 2-for-5 with an RBI for the Devil Rays (34-35). -- Ryan McConnell/MLB.com

 

Brevard County Box Score:

Yohannis Perez 0-for-4 in his Manatee debut; RHP Josh Baker struggled in his return from the D.L.; Angel Salome's 5th HR and 5th passed ball...

 

web.minorleaguebaseball.c...p;sid=t503

 

Brevard County Game Log:

 

web.minorleaguebaseball.c...a_breafa_1

 

The Brevard County game's bottom of the 9th inning audio begins at the 4 hour, 41 minute mark (no, the game wasn't that long, there was a rain delay to begin), be sure you're on the archive date of June 19th -- post-game comment from Chris Errecart follows:

 

web.minorleaguebaseball.c...p;sid=t503

[Mass Haas]

Huntsville Site:

 

Rain Slows Down Stars and Smokies

 

The Huntsville Stars and Tennessee Smokies have been rained out Tuesday night at Smokies Park. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on Thursday afternoon and evening, beginning at 4:30 pm central time.

 

The Stars will send right-hander Will Inman to the mound in Wednesday?s scheduled game against Smokies? right-hander Kevin Hart. Coverage of the game will begin at 10:45 am and can be heard through the internet at www.huntsvillestars.com.

[Boy Jeenius]

I think I'm the only person who did not get excited about Gillespie tearing up a bunch of HS kids last year. I thought his promotion to BC was premature and now going to Huntsville would be absolutely crazy. It seemed to me that they valued Ford more as a prospect by letting him stay in WV an extra 1/2 yr to get his game together at Gillespie's expense. If they value Gillespie as a prospect he will stay at BC and not be shoved up the ladder again.