Link Report for Wed. 5/9 - Inman: 7 IP, 0 R, 4 H, 1 BB, 6 K

[DHonks]

also colby, given that his window with the organization is closing, Mike Jones likely will get shifted to the pen at some point.

[Mass Haas]

Link while active, text follows:

 

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

 

Stars play close, but wins elusive

Huntsville leaves too many on base in narrow loss

By MARK McCARTER

Huntsville Times Sports Staff, markcolumn@aol.com

 

Half-full: Four of their last six games, the Huntsville Stars have been highly competitive. They have placed the tying or winning run on base in the bottom of the ninth, with legitimate chances to win.

 

Half-empty: The Huntsville Stars have lost five of their last six games.

 

Most recently, there was Wednesday afternoon's 6-5 loss to the Mobile BayBears, sinking Huntsville to 14-17 on the season.

 

This time, outfielder Mel Stocker, a dynamic defensive player whose web-gem moments are becoming almost routine, snapped out of an arid 0-for-18 streak with a leadoff double. Steve Sollmann bunted him to third.

 

Alas, there he remained. Yohannis Perez hit a scorching shot to third and was thrown out, then Lou Palmisano was struck out by relief ace Dustin Glant.

 

Fuss not about Palmisano's K. It wouldn't have been close without him. His two-run homer keyed a three-run sixth; it was his fourth homer of the year, matching his '06 total.

 

"We battled," said manager Don Money.

 

"But we need to put some more crooked numbers on the board."

 

There seems to be a trend among the Stars to pitch well - except for one dreadful inning. It happened to starter Adam Pettyjohn, who allowed only five hits. Four of them came in a three-run second inning. Then reliever Jeff Housman, in his third appearance since coming off the disabled list, struggled with control in the eighth, then yielded a two-run, two-out single to Jarred Ball.

 

"There always seems to be that one big inning," Money said.

 

The Stars and BayBears meet again tonight at 7:05, then end the homestand at 10:35 a.m. Friday before making the long trek to Carolina.

 

With Wednesday's 12:05 start, the Stars began a six-game stretch with six different starting times.

[Mass Haas]

David Wesier's

 

www.starsboxscore.com/

 

TROUBLE IN THE ROCKET CITY

Our out-of-town owner, Miles Prentice, paid a visit to Huntsville Tuesday night and observed another pathetic crowd at Joe Davis Stadium. His observation, as quoted in The Huntsville Times, was that attendance figures are "absolutely" a concern........ After looking at the attendance figures since 1997, I'd say he's right on the money....... I broke down the number of three-figure crowds in the last 11 years, the first column being the number of three-figure crowds through the first 31 games of the season, the number of home dates within those 31 games, and the total number of three-figure crowds for the year:

 Year thru 31 G Home Dates Total 2007 10 15 2006 2 16 4 2005 3 14 6 2004 5 16 12 2003 5 19 9 2002 4 14 13 2001 2 14 2 2000 1 14 2 1999 1 14 3 1998 4 19 6 1997 1 16 2

Click on the link above for a better view of David's chart -- Jim

 

10 games out of 15 with a crowd of less than 1,000, far more than any previous year for the past 11 years, and well on the way for breaking the 2002 pace, which may well be the record for a single season. That's just an assumption...... During the Stars' Oakland era, the team drew better than 200,000 every season except the dreadfully bad 1988 team........ From my experience at Joe Davis Stadium since 1985, I've noticed that many of the regulars that used to come, say 10 years ago, no longer come, and aside from the fact that a few I know have died, some have registered various beefs about the management. I don't want to go into a long laundry list of gripes I've heard from them, or comment on their validity, but the fact is that these beefs are real, and are a part of the reason that regulars, some of them former season-ticket holders, have stopped coming.......

 

But it doesn't stand alone as the reason.......... The park is old (the oldest in the Southern League), lacking the ambiance of newer parks, and is no longer the novelty and the conversation piece it was during the early years. As a result of the negligence, exhibitions against major league affiliates have ceased and All-Star games are no longer hosted. The city's concern about the park --- nil........ Also, most Huntsvillians, as diverse as they are because of Redstone Arsenal and Marshall Space Flight Center, don't identify with Milwaukee as their team's affiliate, don't care about the team, evident by the lack of civic pride of having a baseball team of their own to root for, and really, don't care for baseball, period........ This is Alabama, where football and NASCAR rule.

 

Miles wants to get more groups into the park, and that is something he and Stars management will be working on, for the general public doesn't seem to care anymore. To get fans back in, the park must be a novelty again, and short of starting over and building a new park, which is badly needed, it will take a mighty infusion of money to build new skyboxes that jut out and allow patrons to sit out on a balcony, a grass berm in the outfield, a wraparound concourse, and moving the concessions along the concourse, or at least, in view of the action....... As Miles has said, a combination of private and public funds........ By my estimate, at least $35 million......... Says Miles, Joe Davis Stadium is "a diamond in the rough. It's very important for a community to have a professional franchise like this, one that's affiliated with Major League Baseball."....... Asked if he had hopes for a new stadium, Miles says, "I can dream."........ Until the city government and the people in this city can prove they want professional baseball in Huntsville, Miles will keep on dreaming, until he's finally fed up.

 

The Stars, playing day baseball, lost for the fifth time in six games, hitting .230 in the stretch...... It puts them into a 4th place tie in the Northern Division.

 

It was picture perfect weather for Seniors Citizens Day. Discounted tickets for the geezers. One of Huntsville seniors started the game off with the National Anthem, and did a fine job....... A nice breeze blew into the stands, the weather 83° and clear, and the humidity low. I tell you, you couldn't beat today's weather........ Unfortunately, it attracted a crowd of just 818.

 

Jarred Ball, a Mendoza-line hitter with a lifetime .167 average against the Stars in 2005-06, ended a see-saw game in the top of the 8th with a two-out, two-run one-hop liner to right, capping a three-run rally to beat Jeff Housman, 6-5........ That gives the Bay Bears the series, with two games remaining...... Ball is 3-for-8 in the series.

 

Mobile's three-run 8th started when Housman, who threw a 1-2-3 7th, hit catcher Wilkin Castillo with one out. Castillo moved to second, then to third on a pair of wild pitches, the first on Housman's first pitch to Javier Brito, the second with Mark Reynolds at the plate......... Mel Stocker saved a run with an exciting diving catch in right field off the bat of Brito, but Castillo wound up scoring on a ground-rule double to center, when Carlos Gonzalez hit a long fly ball to deep center that bounded off Steve Moss' glove....... With Reynolds (who walked on four pitches) on third and Gonzalez on second, Ball delivered the game-winning hit on a 1-1 pitch.

 

Down 3-1, the Stars rallied in the 6th..... The Stars tied the game on a one-out, two-run homer by Lou Palmisano that just cleared the first fence in left-center, under the scoreboard....... Moss kept the inning alive with a ground single to left....... Second baseman Emilio Bonifacio then muffed a routine grounder to put runners on 1st and 2nd........ A fly ball to the warning track in left moved Moss to third, and Hernan Iribarren, behind 0-and-2, put the Stars ahead, 4-3, on a line single to left.

 

The Stars fell a run short in the 9th after the first two hitters reached....... Pinch-hitter Carlos Corporan doubled to right-center, then scored when Stocker stretched a single into a double to break an 0-for-18 slump....... He took third on a sac bunt by Steve Sollmann, but Laynce Nix, who went 0-for-5, grounded out to third, and Palmisano struck out on a 2-2 pitch to end the game.... The run allowed by the Bay Bears bullpen was only one allowed over 9 1/3 innings of this series.

 

The Stars play under the lights Thursday, with Steve Hammond (2-4, 6.00) taking the mound against Matt Green (3-1, 2.65), the Diamondbacks' 2nd round draft choice in 2005. Green has given up eight runs on 14 hits and a walk in 13 innings in his last two starts......... Hammond is 0-3, 8.16 at home in three starts.

 

The Stars will go with Lindsay Gulin, a Southern League veteran who was with the Diamond Jaxx in 2000, going 5-2 with a 4.99 ERA in nine starts, and the Jacksonville Suns in 2001 and 2002, where, by anomaly, he logged 2.64 ERAs in both seasons...... Gulin comes down from Nashville to replace Mike Jones, who has been placed on the disabled list with an elbow strain...... Jonesy, I'm told, feels fine, and his stay on the DL may be a relatively short one.

 

This was only the 3rd time in 20 games that the Stars reached double-figures in the hit column......... Adam Pettyjohn, who was 0-for-6 as a hitter, delivered the Stars' first hit in the 3rd after Jonathan Castellanos retired eight in a row....... After eight games, today was the first time this month the Stars had scored more than five runs....... Lou Palmisano's home run gave him shots in back-to-back games for the 2nd time this season. He did it the first time on the road against Birmingham, April 28-29. His 2-for-4 day puts him no better than 4th in the Southern League batting race (.361), but he leads Tennessee's Jorge Cortes by a percentage point in on-base percentage (.484)....... After hitting .229 in April, Hernan Iribarren is hitting .310 this month with three RBIs in this series against Mobile........ Steve Moss is hitting .172 this month after hitting .311 in April. Moss slumped in May last year, too, hitting .198 in May after a .273 April.

 

The Chattanooga Lookouts promoted center fielder Chris Dickerson to Louisville along with speedster Jared Burton.

[brettac1]

And remember a year ago we were all wondering the same thing with Gallardo, who was also dominating the FSL (although I'm not sure to the same level Inman is).

 

When does Brevard start to get the "High Desert treatment" and get skipped by the top pitchers in the organization? To me it's almost useless for them to be there.

[pogokat]

i dunno Brett...

 

Yo went in a good pitching prospect and left top three in baseball...i know that it has an effect on the ball, but i think its good for pitchers to go there..inman is unreal, but yo wasn't until he played in brevard...

[colbyjack]

I would love for the Brewers to find an affiliate that plays in a more neutral environment, that's for sure, but I'd rather the pitchers not completely lose their confidence in a place like High Desert.

 

Yo may have not been unreal before last season, but BA did have him ranked as the Brewers #4 prospect entering last spring IIRC, and he was pretty dang good at WV the year before. I think Michael, or maybe it was Jim, accurately predicted that Gallardo would be the team's #1 prospect by the end of the 2006 season before the 2006 season, so the unreal talent was definitely there.

[pogokat]

oh, i agree patrick---

 

i don't think there's something mystical about Brevard, but it's possible that it helps the guys learn to chellange the batters more since there's little chance of somone hitting a homerun off of you in the FSL...

 

A good confidence boost, no doubt...and unlike High Desert, it doesn't seem to negatively affect the players after they leave...