I hope you all caught the behind-the-scenes look at SportsCenter last night. It was a fascinating gander at the time pressures, creativity and ad-libbing that goes on to air, what is for some of us, our favorite show.

It also gave me a brilliant idea. I know many of you are dying to know how this whole MLBB blog is put together. I just need to work out the logistics of filming the process and finding someone to broadcast it, but here's a snippet of what that 4-minute show would include:

An inside look at the thought-process that initiated the creation of MLBB ("Hmm, I could do a blog.")

Me alt-tabbing (furiously alt-tabbing) between the web and my Excel spreadsheet as I type

A scene of the panic that ensues when I realize I've gotten to the last sip of my Diet Pepsi

Blooper footage of the day when I misspelled both 'Saltalamacchia' and 'Francoeur.' Whew, that was a riot.

Look for it soon....

MLBBies for July 29
Jarrod Saltalamacchia - 2-for-2, 2 doubles, 3 BBs
Paul Bacot - 5 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K

I'm giddy. We don't get too many 'walking streaks' around here which makes Salty's even more appreciated. That's 6 straight games taking the free pass, and he now has 18 walks - none of them intentional - in just 73 ABs.

(Disclaimer: From here on out, I'm using my own compilation of stats rather than the ones gathered by Baseball America. I'm 98% sure I've found some errors with the ones reported for both rookie leagues.)

Bacot lowered his ERA to 1.08. And although the strikeouts still aren't there, it's hard not to be impressed by every other number he puts up, including his 7.3 K/BB ratio and .168 BAA.

Hitting Streaks
James Jurries - 7 games
Charles Thomas - 6 games

Nick Green continued his power surge last night hitting 2 more doubles. He's had 7 doubles, a triple and a HR in his last 12 games. Green's the only middle-infielder in the minors that's already on the 40-man roster, but with Marcus Giles finally entrenched there, it's hard to believe he'll get a shot in Atlanta. He was added to the 40-man in 2001 and has one more option year remaining.

Chris Fussell exhibited the definition of 'scattering' as he gave up 9 hits but just 2 runs in 5.2 innings. He also struck out 8 batters. Despite the decent outing, he picked up his league-leading 11th loss.

Derrick Lewis is having an ok year as a reliever (3.30 ERA), but please don't let him start.

DATE   IP  H  R ER BB  K HR  Result

4/6   2.2  6  6  4  0  4  1   Loss

4/12  3.0  6  5  5  3  2  1   Loss

4/17  5.0  4  3  3  3  4  0   Loss

6/8   1.2  5  7  7  1  1  0   Loss

7/21  1.2  7  8  6  1  0  1   Loss

Greenville finished up Monday's game and played a full 9 innings of Tuesday's as well. Brett Evert, who actually pitched on Monday, got the win in the first game with 5 scoreless innings. It was his first start in over a month. Chris Waters didn't fare as well in Game 2, giving up 2 HRs in 6 innings of work. That makes 4 consecutive starts that Waters has given up a tater (techincal term).

Offensively, Charles Thomas led the way by going a combined 4-for-9 with 3 doubles and a triple. He's definitely made the most of his recent promotion with hits in every game. He's batting .407/.448/.690 since the call-up last week.

James Jurries left the game early on Monday with back spasms but pinch-hit last night and reached on an infield single. He's hitting .571/.571/.821 during his current hitting streak.

Since their 17-hit outburst on Friday, Myrtle Beach has managed just 16 hits combined in their last 4 games - all losses. Kyle Roat made his debut with the Pelicans and went 1-for-2.

Matt Butler's line yesterday: 4 hits, 4 runs, 4 outs recorded.

Jeff Francoeur went 2-for-3 with a triple, and Carlos Guzman his his second HR of the week in Rome's 10-2 victory. Matt Wright is still having control problems (14 BBs in the last 15.2 IP), but he allowed just 1 run and picked up the win.

Jose Capellan's been placed on the DL with elbow trouble - again. Maybe he shouldn't try to throw 100 mph for awhile. Just a thought... Luis Hernandez was activated, effectively ending Mike Grasso's stint of starts at 2B. Grasso hit just .216/.231/.270 while Hernandez was on the DL.

Matt Esquivel homered for the 3rd time in 8 games.

Cole Barthel has been placed on Danville's DL.

Sean White had his best start of the year, giving up 2 runs and striking out 5 in 5 innings.

Adam Stern's rehab seems like a success so far. After 5 games, he's hitting .421/.522/.632.

Carlos Moreta hit his 5th HR, tying him with Steve Doetsch and Keith Eichas (and a few others) for the league-lead.

I'm going to be headed out of town early tomorrow morning to celebrate my fiancee's completion of the evil Bar Exam. Somewhere there's a slot machine eager to hand over its money... Assuming nothing happens today, I'll be back on Sunday to analyze any Braves trade that's gone down.

 
MLBBies for July 28
Jeff Francouer - 2-for-3, 2B, BB!
Chuck James - 6 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K

Woohoo, a walk! I knew Francoeur had one more in him for this month, because he now has 4 walks in each of the first 4 months of the season. That's consistency. By my count, he's taken the free pass twice in his last 110 plate appearances. The average (.287) is great, and the power (19 doubles and 11 HRs) is very good for a 19-year-old in his first full season. So my only reservation is the whole walk thing.

But in Francoeur's defense (although it's really not), other than Jon Schuerholz and Wes Timmons, this just isn't a very plate-disciplined team. Rocket Wheeler preaches aggressiveness, and that's what he gets. Of the other 12 position players still in Rome, they're cumulative BB/AB is just .06 - well below average. Francoeur's is .04.

Ho-hum, another excellent outing for James. Both runs he allowed came on a 2-run HR, his first given up this year. And the 6-inning performance was his longest of the year. A quick rundown: 1.29 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, .160 BAA, 12.6 K/9, 4.1 K/BB.

Matt Belisle's debut doesn't look that pretty in the boxscore, but by all accounts, it was an impressive outing. He ran into trouble when he came out for the 7th inning, and the bullpen allowed the final two runs credited to him. He struck out 4 and allowed no walks.

Adam LaRoche had Richmond's only extra-base hit, ending a personal three-game drought. LaRoche is hitting .308/.345/.462 for the month of July.

For all the hype that Macay McBride received coming into the year, you'd think he'd be getting more notice now with the season that he's having. His ERA is up a little over last year, probably because he's giving up more hits. But he's also striking out more batters (and leads the Carolina League in Ks), and he's got a team-best ERA of 3.13 which is the 9th-best in the league.

Andy Marte has his 11-game hitting streak come to an end, but he wasn't the only one not hitting last night. The Pelicans had a grand total of 3 hits - all singles.

Contrast that to Rome's lineup in which every player got on base. Ardley Jansen went 3-for-4, and Jon Schuerholz had 2 more hits.

Jose Capellan lasted just 3 innings after giving up 1 run on 5 hits and 2 walks. Ryan Ewin did yeoman's work, pitching 5 shutout relief innings.

Mike Hanson homered for Danville and has 9 hits in his last 22 ABs.

Whitt Farr pitched 3 scoreless innings and took over the league's ERA lead from teammate Chuck James.

MLBBie runner-up, Martin Prado went 3-for-4 with a triple for Orlando. After batting .203/.298/.230 as the leadoff man, Prado was shifted down in the lineup and has hit .291/.361/.400 from the #2 and #9 spot.

Jo Jo Reyes gave up an unearned run and lowered his ERA to 1.93 in 7 games with a 10.9 K/9.

 
Here's a Rome News-Tribune article on Jon Schuerholz's switch-hitting experiment.

Also, Jose Rodriguez and Ricardo Rodriguez have traded places with the former coming off the DL and the latter going on it.

 
Wilson Betemit has been placed on the Temporary Inactive List, which kinda confirms the radio report yesterday that he was on his way back to the Dominican Republic for family reasons.

Matt Belisle will make his AAA debut tonight.

 
I've got some problems with my uber-spreadsheet that allows me to pass along my usual statistical minutae. Sad, I know. I should be able to fix it tonight, but until then, you'll just have to settle for the handing out of MLBBies...

MLBBies for July 27
Mike Hessman - 3-for-4, 2 HR
Dan Meyer - 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K

Hessman's been rumored to be included in a trade-deadline deal, so if it's true then this was a pretty decent farewell. Even with his 2 blasts, his HR rate is down a bit this year, most likely because of his injured back. He's probably going to finish with numbers somewhat below Wes Helms' final season in Richmond. Hessman's a year older, but this just solidifies his Helmsian tendancies. Helms, as the "power hitter of the future," eventually earned a promotion to Atlanta, but we know how that turned out - .234/.287/.423 in 444 ABs. In fact, Helms was so bad they had to bring in Vinny Castilla. And he's not doing any better in Milwaukee - .257/.325/.449 in 343 ABs.

Repeat after me: Hessman equals Helms.

Meyer lowered his ERA to 2.95 with Myrtle Beach and to 2.89 overall this year. Meyer doesn't get a lot of press, or at least he hasn't yet. But as a 21-year-old lefty with this kind of control (131 Ks, 22 BBs), he would be a top prospect in many organizations. My only concern is the number of HRs he allows.

This sounds really simple (and it is), but the higher the HR rate, the higher the ERA. Meyer has been good enough so far that due to his extremely low WHIP (1.03), most of the HRs have been solo shots and his ERA hasn't suffered. But I looked at the HR/9 for starters in the Braves' minor-leagues for the 2000-2002 seasons and found a performance difference a little greater than what I expected.

I used Meyer's current 0.84 rate as the cut-off. The pitchers who had a higher rate than that posted a 4.43 ERA in 1,685.1 IP. Starters with a lower rate had a 3.13 ERA in 6,189.3 IP. It obviously behooves Meyer (and everyone else) to keep the ball in the park.

Bill Shanks is reporting that Trey Hodges is being placed on the DL to open a spot for Jason Marquis.

 
Well, we know that Matt Belisle will be taking Jason Marquis's spot in the Richmond rotation now that Marquis has been promoted to Atlanta. Of course, that just opens up a whole new set of questions. Will Jason be used in the BP or the rotation? Will a player be getting the boot, or will it be just a stint on the DL to clear room for him in Atlanta? Is he just being showcased one last time before a trade?

I won't even get into the current trade rumors since they are, after all, just rumors. Safe to say though, that whatever happens could have a significant effect on the rest of the minor-league seasons.

 
Apologies for a late (and short) entry today, but I made a brief trip out of town to see some non-Braves minor league action...

MLBBies for July 26
Steve Doetsch - 3-for-4, 2B, 3B, HR, BB
Bubba Nelson - 7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K

Streaks for everyone are hard to keep up with sometimes, but here's one I should've caught earlier: Doetsch has reached base in 24 straight games. He hit .407/.448/.741 for the week.

Nelson just had his best month of the season, although there's really only been one 'bad' one:

Month     ERA

April    2.55

May      4.83

June     2.32

July     2.17

Hitting Streaks
Andy Marte - 10 games

Ryan Langerhans homered in just his third AAA game and finished the night going 3-for-4. Johnny Estrada hit his third HR in 5 days. Wilson Betemit had just one hit - but, of course, it was a triple. With his 4 triples this week, he raised his SLG from .369 to .389.

James Jurries went 3-for-5 with a double and triple for Greenville and has 12 hits in his last 20 ABs.

Alec Zumwalt pitched a perfect 8th inning in his AA debut.

I can't say I've ever seen a pitcher credited with 3 errors in a game, but that's what Matt Coenen did last night. And in the odd world of baseball scoring, he benefited from his own mistakes as all 5 runs he allowed were unearned. Matt Butler, in his 3rd appearance of the year, worked a scoreless 1.2 innings.

Greg Donato hit his first HR for Rome in his 7th game with the team. Jon Schuerholz batted in the #2 spot for the first time this year and responded well, going 1-for-2 with a walk and sac fly.

Anthony Lerew, who missed a start due to a funeral, allowed 4 runs and struck out 7 in 7 innings. He's got a nifty 2.61 ERA and 1.07 WHIP.

Someone should tell Matt Esquivel that he's batting .429/.500/1.000 with 5 HRs in the 10 games when he hasn't struck out.

Carl Loadenthal has a .528 OBP over his last 8 games.

Luis Atilano had his best game of the year giving up 1 run on 5 hits in 5 innings.

 
MLBBies for July 25
Andy Marte - 3-for-5, 2B, HR
Kyle Davies - 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K

The Pelicans have been off for a few days, but Marte continued right along where he left off. Not only does he now have a 9-game hitting streak, but he's been held hitless just twice this month. He's batting .324/.407/.535 in July.

You don't get much more dominating than Davies' performance. His league-lead in strikeouts (122) gives him a 10.3 K/9.

Hitting Streaks
Andy Marte - 9 games
Jeff Francoeur - 7 games

Steve Doetsch, Miguel Bernard, Wilson Betemit and Jon Schuerholz all ended their streaks.

Sam McConnell, the Pirates' 11th-round choice in the 1997 draft, is easily filling the rotation spot vacated by Ryan Glynn at the end of June. In his 5 starts since Glynn was sold to a Korean team, McConnell is 4-0 with a 1.91 ERA.

Johnny Estrada hit his 8th HR of the year and has 8 hits in his last 15 ABs.

James Jurries and Ramon Castro each had 3 hits for Greenville.

Adam Wainwright went 7 innings and allowed just 2 runs on 2 hits and a walk.

Myrtle Beach exploded for 13 runs and 17 hits - all without the help of Scott Thorman. Thorman took a knee to the head in the first inning, but after a trip to the hospital, he's expected to be alright. Isaac Iorg took over at 1B and had 3 hits. Brayan Pena also collected 3 hits. It's his ninth 3-hit performance in 59 games.

Zach Miner had another excellent outing, allowing 1 run on 5 hits in 7 innings. Miner has a 3.02 home ERA to go with a 3.98 ERA on the road.

Jeff Francoeur is hitting .345/.333/.655 over his current 7-game hitting streak. Yes, that's right. His OBP is lower than his BA.

Fernando Tadefa has give up a run in 6 of his last 10 relief outings for Rome. His ERA for the month is 5.79, and his WHIP is 1.93.

Matt Esquivel went 0-for-3 with 3 Ks for Danville, upping his strikeout total to 39 in 35 games.

Danny Collins struck out 6 and allowed 1 run in 5 innings. Ryan Basner pitched the final 3 innings and whiffed 4 batters. He now has a K/9 of 10.3 and a non-Baseball America-approved ERA of 1.37 with a miniscule 0.72 WHIP.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia may not be collecting a lot of hits right now (just 11 in his first 69 ABs), but check out the walks - 13 in 27 games! How about this? He has almost twice as many as Travis Wilson but in 67 fewer games. To me, this is better news than if he had started off hitting .400.

 
Anthony Lerew has been taken off the Temporary Inactive List, and Kyle Roat, who hit just .219/.300/.294 for Rome, gets the call-up to Myrtle Beach.

 
MLBBies for July 24
Brian McCann - 4-for-4, SB
Blaine Boyer - 5 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 5 K

Up until last night, McCann had cooled off from his recent hitting streaks, but he still has managed a hit in 24 of his last 30 games. Here's how he stacks up against other Braves' catchers:

Player   Team         G    AVG  OBP  SLG  HR  BB/AB  K/AB

Estrada  Richmond     83  .341 .400 .509   7   .08   .08

Evans    Greenville   50  .238 .332 .366   3   .13   .23

B. Pena  Myrtle Beach 58  .313 .340 .418   2   .04   .09

McCann   Rome         87  .289 .334 .476  12   .06   .17

I'm hesitant to give a coveted MLBBie to a pitcher who walks 4 batters, but the rest of the number looks good - plus there was no one else truly worthy. A lesson for you kids out there: When Boyer has more strikeouts than walks, his ERA is 3.84. When he has more walks than strikeouts, it's 6.23.

Hitting Streaks
Steve Doetsch - 10 games
Andy Marte - 8 games
Miguel Bernard - 9 games
Wilson Betemit - 7 games
Jon Schuerholz - 6 games

Onil Joseph's streak came to a 0-for-5, 3-K crash.

Nick Green had 2 more hits and is batting .396/.453/.688 over his last 15 games.

Ryan Langerhans got a PH-double in his first game with Richmond. He's now batting 1.000/1.000/2.000 in his last 1 game for Richmond. Ha, I crack myself up...

Charles Thomas also had a nice debut for Greenville, going 3-for-5 with a double.

Chris Waters allowed a season-high in runs, giving up 7 (5 earned) in 2 innings. His ERA at Greenville now stands at 4.37. Brett Evert, Ray Aguilar and Billy Sylvester combined to strikeout 11 batters in the next 7 innings to close out the loss.

Jeff Francoeur hit his 12th HR and third in the last week.

Mike Hanson raised his average to .299 and his OBP to .356 by going 2-for-4.

Steve Russell lasted just 2 innings after allowing 3 runs on 2 walks and 2 hits, one of those being a HR. That left Whitt Farr to pitch 3.2 scoreless innings, and he lowered his ERA to 1.38.

Dan Mead's last 4 outings: 4.2 IP, 11 H, 14 R, 13 ER, 7 BB, 3K. Eek! My calculator started smoking when I tried to input those numbers...

Jaime Romak had a single and double yesterday for his first 2-hit day as a Brave.

Jake Stevens made it through Orlando's error-filled game, allowing just 1 earned run to score in his 4 innings of work. He struck out 5 and raised his K/9 to 9.9.

 
Matt Belisle (3.52 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 6.8 K/9) has been promoted to Richmond, or maybe I should say, he is scheduled to be promoted on Monday. For now, he's been put on the Temporary Inactive List. Now, as I understand it, there is a minimum stay of five days for that List, which means that he wouldn't be available to Richmond until Tuesday at the earliest.

To replace him, Greenville called up Alec Zumwalt (2.22 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 8.7 K/9). This will allow Brett Evert to return to the the G-Braves' rotation.

This will give Richmond 5 actual starters, (Belisle, Andy Pratt, John Ennis, Jason Marquis and Chris Fussell) plus Travis Phelps and Derrick Lewis who can start and relieve. Somebody's gotta go. Marquis to Atlanta would be nice and long overdue. A more likely scenario would have one of those starters packaged in a trade. Yesterday's promotion of Ryan Langerhans might also point to the same thing happening with Mike Hessman or Wilson Betemit. It's all conjecture, of course and I must warn you, I'm never right about these things...

 
With a promotion to AA just hours away, this was a timely article from an Asheville newspaper on Charles Thomas.

The Chesterfield Braves?? Doesn't really have a ring to it, does it? Folks in Richmond seem to be checking out other sites to replace the 18-year-old Diamond.

 
Who would've thought it? In Baseball America's ranking of the top prospects at first base, the Braves have 2 (two!) in the top 12. It's not a total surprise, but you've got to admit, it's still odd to see.

Adam LaRoche is ranked 8th.

"LaRoche has been picking up steam as a prospect since he quietly hit .336 at Class A Myrtle Beach and .289 for Double-A Greenville last season, catapulting himself into the realm of elite Braves prospects. He has a hand hitch in his trigger, but manages to get his hands in hitting position. LaRoche makes solid contact hitting line drives with carry to the gaps. He has a good idea at the plate, hits for average power and plays a good first base."

And Scott Thorman comes in #12.

"Thorman soared to No. 8 on the Braves top 10 last year coming off a breakthrough season. LaRoche is more advanced and has passed him on the depth chart. Thorman's power ranks as the best in the system, though, and he's less than two years removed from the shoulder surgery that cost him the 2001 season. He is a max-effort hacker, who manages to maintain a good approach at the plate. If he can't improve upon his .172 clip against lefties though, he's destined to be a platoon player or bat off the bench. Expect him to improve, as LaRoche's presence affords the Braves to luxury of easing Thorman up the ladder."

 
Ryan Langerhans has been promoted to Richmond, and Charles Thomas takes his spot in Greenville. Also, Kelly Johnson has left the G-Braves for Orlando where he will play in "several" games there for his rehab.

 
MLBBies for July 23
James Jurries - 5-for-5, 2B
Chuck James - 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 11 K

Jurries had the first 5-hit day in the Braves' minors this year and rasied his numbers to a team-high .292/.367/.438. July has been very, very good to him. He's hitting .370/.413/.575 in 19 games this month.

James solidified his league-lead in ERA (0.93) and took over the top spot in strikeouts (43). He also has a 0.97 WHIP and has struck out 39% of the batters he's faced.

Hitting Streaks
Onil Joseph - 12 games
Steve Doetsch - 9 games
Andy Marte - 8 games
Miguel Bernard - 8 games
Wilson Betemit - 6 games

Wilson Betemit is triple-happy. Another one last night makes it three-straight games with a three-bagger. That'll do wonders for his slugging percentage which had been lagging of late. He's hitting .500/.583/1.100 in his current 6-game hitting streak with a double, 4 triples and a HR.

Pretty much everyone with Richmond had a good day at the plate. Except for Mike Hessman, who went 0-for-5 with 3 Ks. He's hitting .161/.188/.355 with 10 Ks in his 8 games since returning from the DL.

Jason Marquis allowed 4 runs in 7 innings and struck out just 4 batters. Will Cunnane 's been a nice addition to the Richmond bullpen so far. He's given up just 2 runs - both unearned - in 13 innings. He also has a nice 14-to-2 K/BB ratio.

While filling in at SS for the injured Kelly Johnson, Pete Orr has gone just 6-for-37, and 2 of those hits came last night. He also has zero walks in those 11 games.

Matt Belisle (3.52 ERA, 1.36 ERA) went 7 innings and surrendered 3 runs on 9 hits and a walk. He struck out 4.

Myrtle Beach's game was rained out and will not be made up.

Rome got 3-hit games from Jon Schuerholz, Onil Joseph and Danny Ruiz to win 9-4. Carlos Guzman, who's already played in a career-high 75 games, hit his 7th HR.

Matt Wright had another off-night with is control (4 walks in 5 innings), but picked up his 4th win with Rome. Efie Peralta (0.88 ERA, 0.95 WHIP at Rome and Danville) allowed just his 3rd earned run of the year to score.

Josh Burrus had 2 of Danville's 4 hits and is hitting .344/.371/.531 over his last 9 games. Scott Schade has gone 41 ABs with an extra-base hit.

Glenn Tucker (1.89 ERA, 1.00 WHIP) has allowed just 1 run in his last 11 games.

Adam Stern looks to be on a rehab assigment with Orlando. He pulled his hamstring in spring training and played his 1st game of the year yesterday. He went 4-for-5 while playing CF. Stern hit just .253/.298/.364 in 119 games for Myrtle Beach last year.

Matt Harrison made his 2nd start of the year and lowered his ERA to 2.04 with 4 scoreless innings. Paul Bacot(1.27 ERA, 0.64 WHIP) picked up the win in relief after giving up just 1 hit in 4 innings.

 
MLBBies for July 22
Jon Schuerholz - 3-for-4, 2B
JoJo Reyes - 5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K

Schuerholz is on quite a tear lately. He's got 9 hits in his last 13 ABs with 2 doubles and a walk. And since May 3rd, he's hit .281 with a .367 OBP. No power to speak of, but that's why he's batting 8th...

Reyes has struck out 33% of the batters he's faced and they're hitting just .175 against him.

Hitting Streaks
Onil Joseph - 11 games
Andy Marte - 8 games
Miguel Bernard - 8 games
Steve Doetsch - 8 games

Richmond's game was rained out and won't be played until August 20.

Greenville's weak offense showed up again (just 5 hits), but Dan Curtis made them winners with his 6-inning, 2-run performance. Both runs were unearned, so Curtis's ERA at home is just 1.06. Billy Sylvester allowed a hit in the scoreless 9th and has pitched the final inning 3 of the last 4 days. Brett Evert's ERA is 3 runs less as a reliever (2.78) than as a starter (5.79).

Andy Marte went 2-for-4 extending his streak to 8 games. I won't bore you with the math. What am I saying? Of course, I will. He's hitting .320/.433/.600 in those 8 games.

Yaron Peters went 1-for-4 and raised his average to .167. Of his 27 games with Myrtle Beach, he's had more than a single hit just once - and that was more than a month ago.

Macay McBride went 7.1 innings and struck out 8 while allowing 4 runs. He's got the anti-MB home/road split:

       ERA  K/9

Home  3.76  10.3

Road  2.28   7.0

Despite the Bernard and Joseph hitting streaks, Schuerholz's continued success and Jeff Francoeur's 10th HR, Rome dropped last night's game after Ryan Ewin allowed 8 runs on 11 hits in just 4.2 innings. On the bright side, he struck out 6 and didn't walk anyone.

Matt Esquivel hit a solo HR for Danville - his 4th - and is now batting .325/.379/.521.

D-Brave pitchers allowed 16 runs, 'led' by Dan Mead's 5-run, 2-out relief stint. Mead's ERA is now a robust 8.22. Starter Charlie Morton gave up 3 runs in 4 innings. Whitt Farr was the only pitcher to remain unscathed and lowered his ERA to 1.48.

Carl Loadenthal, Martin Prado, Carlos Moreta and Steve Doetsch (batting in the 9th spot) all had 2 hits on Tuesday. Loadenthal has a .477 OBP since taking over as Orlando's leadoff hitter. It's probably not a coincidence that the team is scoring 2 more runs per game with him as the top.

 
MLBBies for July 21
Adam LaRoche - 4-for-4, 2B, HR in game 1 of doubleheader
Travis Phelps - 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K

LaRoche had another hit in the second game and also stole just his 2nd base of the year. He is now batting .281/.338/.445 for Richmond. Since this was just his 4th HR in 35 games at AAA, it would seem as though his power has dropped a lot since he hit 12 dingers at Greenville. But actually his percentage of extra-base hits has only fallen from 40.3% to 36.1%. It's just that those HRs at AA have turned into more doubles at AAA. LaRoche is probably more of a doubles-hitter anyway, so you can chalk the drop in SLG to over-performing against AA pitchers.

Phelps and his knuckle-curve looked impressive against Charlotte. Phelps was a starter until the 2001 season, so Monday's fill-in for Chuck Smith wasn't completely foreign to him.

Hitting Streaks
Onil Joseph - 10 games
Andy Marte - 7 games
Miguel Bernard - 7 games
Steve Doetsch - 7 games

Wilson Betemit hit 2 triples in Richmond's doubleheader and, interestingly, has 4 triples in the last 4 days. So far this year, Betemit's had 2 bad months, 1 good one, and is working on 1 very good one.

Month  AVG  OBP  SLG  K/G

April .224 .290 .282  0.88

May   .301 .343 .473  0.78

June  .234 .297 .280  1.14

July  .318 .392 .545  0.47

Lee Evans got the only two hits for Greenville (both were doubles), and the G-Braves lost 1-0. Bubba Nelson had a good start, going 5 innings and allowing 1 run on 5 hits. He lowered his ERA to 3.13, best among G-Brave starters.

Andy Marte hit his 11th HR and extended his hitting streak to 7 games. He's also had hits in 13 of his last 14 games and belted .321/.429/.528 over that span.

Dan Meyer allowed 3 runs on 7 hits and struck out 4 in 6 innings. You would think that with a WHIP of 1.08, a K/9 of 9.4 and a K/BB of 6.3 that his ERA would be much lower than 3.34. But you just have to look at the far end of the boxscore to know where a chunk of the runs are coming from. Meyer has given up a HR in 4 of his 5 starts, and at a minimum those account for more than a third of his total runs allowed.

Miguel Bernard has gone 9-for-25 (.360) over his 7-game streak that spanned a trip to the DL. Jon Schuerholz went 3-for-3 with a walk. Jeff Francoeur has 3 straight 2-hit games and is 9 for his last 20. He also has just 3 walks in 22 games this month.

Steve Doetsch went 2-for-5 for Orlando (his 4th straight multi-hit game) and is now 3rd in the league in BA (.345) and SLG (.518) and 2nd in total hits (38). Carlos Moreta his 4th HR and second in as many days.

Luis Atilano struggled again and saw his ERA rise to 7.65. He has just 3 strikeouts in 20 innings. Jose Ascanio is on the opposite path. His ERA stands at 1.50 after allowing 1 run in 2.2 IP.

 
Rome reliever Jose Rodriguez has been placed on the DL with tendinitis in his shoulder, and Miguel Bernard has been activated off the DL.

Oh yeah, Chuck Smith is probably done for the year. His knee injury reportedly came while working out. I think it's the first time I've ever heard of a player injured while squatting. Silly pitchers...

 
MLBBies for July 20
Keith Eichas - 2-for-4, 2B, HR
Danny Collins - 5 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

Eichas hit his 7th double and 5th HR in his 16th game yesterday. In the games he's started (all but 2 PH appearances), he's hit .455/.519/.955. My "I Like Eichas" buttons should be ready soon...

Collins pitched on 5 days' rest for the first time this year and lowered his ERA to 3.21.

Hitting Streaks
Onil Joseph - 8 games

Gregor Blanco ended his 6-game streak in style, whiffing 5 times.

Mike Hessman, who obviously read my note on his HR drought, hit another one yesterday - his second in his last 3 games. Rontrez Johnson got his 1st hit as a Brave.

Andy Pratt got knocked around to the tune of 10 hits in 6 innings. He allowed 4 runs, but his ERA is still just 2.38 over the last 2 months.

Adam Wainwright had a good, albeit relatively short, outing for Greenville. He gave up 2 earned runs on 7 hits in 5 ininngs and struck out 7 batters. It's definitely good to see those Ks back up...

Kevin Barry has surrendered just 2 runs in his last 23.2 IP. He also has 28 Ks and just 10 hits allowed during that period.

Charles Thomas went 4-for-5 with 2 doubles.

With Blanco's 5 K game, he now has a total of 93 whiffs in 91 games.

Matt Coenen had his longest outing in the last 6 weeks, going 6 innings and allowing 2 runs. He's now struck out just 19 batters over the last 55.2 IP.

Jeff Francoeur, Wes Timmons and Jon Schuerholz all had 2 hits for Rome on Saturday.

Kyle Davies struck out 6 but walked 4 in 4.2 shutout innings. Since May 31, Sung Jung has an 0.38 ERA and a K/9 of 13.5.

Cole Barthel went 3-for-3 with a double in his second game with Danville.

Ooh, there's goes the ERA. Ryan Basner allowed 3 earned runs and his ERA (according to BA) is up to a lofty 1.48. Jacob Blakeney picked up his 1st save and lowered his ERA to 1.90.

Steve Doetsch, Carlos Moreta and Keith Eichas all hit HRs for Orlando. Doetsch's mini-slump is officially over. After going hitless in 4 straight starts, the centerfielder is hitting .409/.480/.545 in his last 6 games.

 
Chuck Smith was placed on the DL yesterday with a "slight tear" to a tendon in his knee. Derrick Lewis will get his scheduled start on Monday.

 
MLBBies for July 19
Jeff Francoeur - 2-for-3, HR
Sam McConnell - 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K

Francoeur hit his 9th HR of the season but just his first since June 7th.

McConnell has had success both as a starter and a reliever for Richmond, although the peripherals look better when he starts.

             IP    ERA   H/9  K/9  BB/9

As starter  24.1  2.96   9.6  6.3  2.2

As reliever 19.1  2.79  10.7  5.6  3.3

Hitting Streaks
Onil Joseph - 8 games
Gregor Blanco - 6 games

Nick Green went 3-for-3 with a double and drove in 2 runs for Richmond. Green's now had a hit in 10 of his last 11 games and has rediscovered his power stroke. Through July 5th, Green had a SLG of just .360, but since then, he's hit .429/.500/.771. Green has been playing some SS lately (5 starts there in the last 3 weeks). I take that as a sign that they're trying to increase his trade value.

Joe Dawley picked up his 16th save (tied for 3rd in the league) by striking out the side last night. Now why wouldn't someone like Dawley, who's struck out 52 batters in 41.1 IP, get more of a chance in the Atlanta bullpen? This might be the answer:

Rest     G   ERA  WHIP

0 days   4  4.50  1.75

1 days  11  4.38  1.54

2 days   7  0.87  0.58

3 days   3  0.00  0.43

Dawley hasn't been that impressive when he has to work on consecutive days on with just 1 day between appearances. Buddy Hernandez had the same strike against him last year which is probably why they're both still in AAA.

Remember Greenville's game on Friday when they won in the 9th inning by getting 3 walks and a HBP? The tables were turned last night as Billy Sylvester walked 2 and hit 2 batters which gave Orlando a 1-run victory. That just builds the drama for today's matchup with Adam Wainwright pitching, doesn't it? The G-Braves have hit just .222/.303/.313 in July.

Brayan Pena went 3-for-3 last night for his eighth 3-hit game of the season. He's now batting .320/.343/.426 in 197 ABs.

Gregor Blanco is batting .407/.448/.667 in his current 6-game hitting streak.

Matt Butler tossed 5 shutout innings, allowing just 3 hits and 2 walks.

Greg Donato has been activated from the DL and promoted to Rome. Also, Anthony Lerew has been placed on the Temporary Inactive List while he attends a funeral. And Brian Almeida has been activated to the bullpen.

Blaine Boyer allowed 1 earned run on 4 hits and 4 walks in 7 innings. As a starter, he has a 4.87 ERA and a 1.67 WHIP.

Cole Barthel was activated from Danville's DL and went 0-for-4 on Saturday.

Eek, what happened to Willie James? Since being sent down to Danville in mid-June, James has hit (if that's the right word) .083/.211/.100.

Steve Russell surrendered 1 run in 5 innings and lowered his ERA to 3.09 in 7 starts. He's also holding hitters to a .202 average.

Four Orlando players had 2 hits - Carl Loadenthal, Martin Prado, Steve Doetsch and Keith Eichas. Eichas is now second on the team in doubles despite having just 47 ABs. Ten of his 19 hits have been for extra bases.

Cole Armstrong became the last '03 draft signee to appear in a game. The 16th-rounder went 0-for-1.

Jake Stevens made his first start of the year and allowed 1 earned run in 4 innings. Dan Smith now has a K/9 of 13.8.

 
MLBBies for July 18
Wilson Betemit - 2-for-3, 3B, HR, BB
Matt Belisle - 7 IP, 9 H, 0R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 K

This was Betemit's best game of the year. He also had a season-high 4 RBI. For July, he's hitting .288/.373/.481 and has cut his strikeouts considerably.

I guess Belisle's scoreless outing makes up for his 7 ER explosion in his last outing. And now for the random stat of the day:

Belisle's H/9 By Month

April  8.4

May  9.2

June  6.7

July  12.2

Richmond signed OF Rontrez Johnson to take Bo Porter's spot on the roster. The 26-year-old had his best season in 2002 as a member of the Royals system, hitting .300/.397/.454 with 50 BB, 51 Ks and 31 steals. He's also reportedly a solid defender with excellent range.

Hitting Streaks
Onil Joseph - 7 games
Donzell McDonald - 6 games

Chris Fussell can really throw some clunkers. Granted, he didn't last night. He struck out 8 and allowed 1 unearned run in 6 innings. But when you have as many 6 ER outings as 0 ER ones, then you're ERA (4.38 in 19 starts) is going to suffer.

Buddy Hernandez has thrown 11 consecutive scoreless innings and has 10 Ks and just 1 walk in that time.

Greenville scored the only run of their game in the 9th inning without a getting a hit (3 walks, HBP). In fact, the G-Braves only managed 4 hits in the entire game - 2 off the bat of James Jurries. Jurries is now hitting .392/.456/.667 in July.

Gregor Blanco, MLBBie runner-up, went 2-for-4 with a double and HR in Myrtle Beach's win. Zach Miner allowed 2 runs on 3 hits and 4 walks in 5 innings.

Luis Hernandez has been placed on the DL for Rome with a hamstring pull retroactive to July 16th. That's good for Mike Grasso who gets some regular time at 2B, while Jon Schuerholz takes SS. Grasso's 5-for-24 as a starter this year.

Brian McCann hit a double at home last night which is news. His SLG at home is just .354, while on the road it's .603! I ran a quickie park factor for State Mutual Stadium and came up with an 89. That means that the number of runs scored there is 11% less than what Rome and their opponents are scoring in other stadiums. McCann's the only full-time lefty hitter, and the stadium might be even be more of a deathtrap for him because of that.

Matt Wright had some control problems in Myrtle Beach, averaging 6.2 walks per 9 innings. He had held that in check in Rome until last night's game when he walked 6 in 5.2 innings.

Cole Barthel was moved from Rome's DL to Danville's list on Friday.

Mike Hanson went 4-for-5, and Steve Pyzik had a single and a double to lead Danville to a win. Hanson raised his season's numbers to .297/.357/.436. He's even better as Danville's leadoff hitter: .352/.390/.500.

Chuck James tossed 4 scoreless innings and struck out 8 batters. He's now K'd 34% of the batters he's faced, is 2nd in the league in strikeouts, and 1st in ERA (1.13). Whitt Farr, who picked up the win, is 3rd in ERA (1.42).

Edwin Martinez and Cole Armstrong switched places between Danville and Orlando. Which makes sense since there was never any evidence that Armstrong was actually in Danville and has probably just been at extended spring training.

Carl Loadenthal and Steve Doetsch each had 2 hits. Paul Bacot allowed 2 runs and struck out 6 in 5 innings.

 
Marquis was released! Oh wait, that's Marquis Donnell ("Bo") Porter that was shown the proverbial door. I usually don't have soft spots for 30-year-old OFs in AAA, but for some reason, I was really rooting for Porter to make it to Atlanta. He was stuck in AA all last year, despite hitting .296/.374/.434 and still mired in AAA this year while Darren (".154") Bragg was getting his 25-30 ABs every month in Atlanta. And he was hitting much better lately. Since June 29, Porter hit .302/.367/.419.

Porter was mostly used in LF in the early part of the year but had played RF lately. So does that mean a Wilson/McDonald/Hessman OF now? Likely callups would include: LF Jason Fitzgerald (.278/.340/.410 at Greenville), who didn't hit too well in his first limited attempt at AAA earlier this year, and LF Billy McCarthy (.266/.363/.431 at Greenville). I guess RF Cory Aldridge (.244/.308/.399) might have an outside chance.

 
MLBBies for July 17
Travis Wilson - 2-for-4, 2B, HR
Efigenio Peralta - 4.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 K

I make fun of Wilson (but in a nice way) because of his... inability? refusal?... to take walks. So here's a positive note to make up for it. He's homered in back-to-back games and is hitting .545/.583/1.182 in his last 3 games. And he still has more BBs (7) than HBPs (6). That's the best I can do...

An Efie-Update: 6 games, 18.2 IP, 0.48 ERA (!), 0.86 WHIP (!), 6.33 K/BB (!)

Coming off of an 8-day rest, Jason Marquis was having a rough start until someone (Guy Hansen?) flipped a switch. Read all about it. Marquis allowed 3 runs on 9 hits and 3 walks, but struck out 9 and picked up the win. That gives him a 1.88 ERA, 1.26 WHIP and a 2.79 K/BB ratio in his last 8 starts.

Mike Hessman also hit a HR for Richmond - his first since June 9 and just his 8th overall.

Ramon Castro was hit by a pitch in his second AB for Greenville and left the game. I always get worried when I see this, but most of the time, it turns out to be nothing more than a bruise.

Ah, get ready for wicked cool stat. When Dan Curtis was promoted from Myrtle Beach, I mentioned his HUGE home/road ERA split: 1.99 vs. 7.50. The split is quite large, but it's not really atypical for pitchers at The Beach. So now that he's at Greenville, which is MUCH more of a hitter's park, you would expect the home/road numbers to even out a bit or perhaps go the other way. Nope. With Greenville, Curtis has a 1.64 ERA at home and 6.59 on the road. Wacky, I tell ya...

Andy Marte hit HR #10 for Myrtle Beach last night and has hit .326/.391/.541 since May 2.

Rome played 21 innings yesterday and won both games of a doubleheader. Onil Joseph led the way in hits going a combined 5-for-9. Ardley Jansen and Jeff Francoeur each went 3-for-4 in the 2nd (really late) game. Ryan Ewin and Sung Jung combined to strike out 19 batters (!) in the first 10 innings of Game 1.

Danville also played a doubleheader, but the wimps just went the regular 14 innings. They got 7 hits in game 1 and just 4 in game 2, yet they managed to win both of them.

The Ryan Basner Watch continues. Last night, he pitched 3 innings, allowed 1 unearned run and struck out 4. Baseball America (and every other website that uses their numbers) shows him with a 0.40 ERA and 0.63 WHIP in 9 games. I have different numbers (pulled from the daily boxscores), but I can't get confirmation on their accuracy from the folks at Danville. Someday, I'll go off on my rant about the lack of responsiveness and, I guess, cohesion within the farm system...

Carlos Moreta and Keith Eichas each went 2-for-4 with a double for Orlando. Ramon Cruz, who had been out with an injured hand, played in his first game since June 28. Does that mean Edwin Martinez will head back up to Danville soon?

 
Rotoworld came out with the mid-season edition of their Top 150 Prospects list today.

6. Adam Wainwright
14. Wilson Betemit
18. Andy Marte
37. Macay McBride
57. Jeff Francoeur
65. Kelly Johnson
100. Matt Belisle
113. Bubba Nelson
131. Andy Pratt

 
MLBBies for July 16
Wes Timmons - 2-for-4, 2B, HR in game 2 of a doubleheader
Jose Capellan - 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

It was a slow night with only Greenville, Rome and Orlando seeing action. Timmons and Capellan both helped Rome to a split in their doubleheader against Capital City. Timmons is hitting a hearty .287/.392/.406 in his first full season. Capellan's outing is even more impressive when you remember that he just pitched a scoreless inning of relief on Sunday.

You know it's a bad day for your offense when your pitcher is responsible for all of your scoring. Bubba Nelson drove in Greenville's only run with a fielder's choice. Oh yeah, he also had a pretty good day on the mound, allowing 3 runs on 4 hits and a walk in 6 innings.
As you regular readers know, I'm always looking for the statistical oddity or at least a trend of some sort that may not appear in any newspaper. You can get game recaps (excellent ones, mind you) other places, but I'm going for minutiae that you just want find anywhere else. It's my little niche. But it's tough to spot one of those with Nelson. Sure, his home ERA (2.83) is much better than his road ERA (3.68) even though he plays most of his games in a hitter's park. But that's too easy. How about this: In games where he walks zero or just one batter, his ERA is 2.00. When he walks more than one, it goes up to 4.10. A good lesson for everyone...

Game 1 of Rome's doubleheader ended with a walk-off HR off of Fernando Tadefa. Tadefa's had it rough lately - depending on how you count Tuesday's completed game from June. The way I'm counting shows that he's allowed runs to score in 4 of his last 6 outings and his ERA's up to 3.13. That loss sullied Anthony Lerew's outing (which was actually sullied by a 4-run outburst in the 5th inning). Lerew struck out 7 in 5.1 innings but did allow all 4 of those runs.

Alright, cover your eyes. Orlando's pitchers gave up 21 hits and 17 runs in a thrashing yesterday afternoon. Luis Atilano was shelled from the beginning, recording just 2 outs while allowing 7 runs to score. His ERA more than doubled - from 3.60 to 7.47. At least Rodny Jimenez was able to get 5 outs before giving up another 7. Atilano's shadow, Jose Ascanio had the best performance. He pitched 4.1 innings and allowed 1 run on 4 hits.

Things weren't too much better offensively. Martin Prado had the only extra-base hit, although he and Carl Loadenthal each drove in 2 runs.

 
The good and the bad from the Triple-A All Star Game:

Johnny Estrada went 3-for-3 with a single, double and HR, knocked in 3 runs and scored twice. He was named the Most Valuable Batter and the International League's Star of Stars.

Andy Pratt did not fare so well. He allowed all three of the PCL's earned runs on 4 hits and 2 walks in the 4th inning.

 
MLBBies for July 15
Cory Aldridge - 3-for-3, HR, BB
Eduardo Rosario - 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K

Minor League Career Normalized to 500 ABs

Player          AB   H   2B  3B  HR  BB   K

Cory Aldridge  500  128  23   7  16  65  159

George Lombard 500  128  24   4  16  48  139

Discuss.

Yeesh, that 6-run outing Rosario had last week sure messes up the ol' ERA. His is now a pedestrian 3.71. Omitting the bad one (I can do that, right?), it would be 0.64.

Aldridge's blast was a 9th-inning game-winner for Greenville. James Jurries also hit one out and is now hitting .289/.372/.446. I'll be the first to say it: Jurries will be in Atlanta in '04. I'm probably way off here, but it wouldn't be the first time. And it's opportunities to spout potential nonsense like this that made Howard Stern what he is today. I aim high.

And since I'm making bold pronouncements, I'll also say that I'm not 100% sold on Adam Wainwright's future. I'm just looking at stats here, and while I believe that they can show you a ton of info, I also know that it's not a complete picture that gets drawn. And it's even worse of a picture with pitchers.

But here's what I know from the stats. Wainwright has tired in August and maybe even July during the last 2 seasons. He gives up more runs and his strikeouts go down. Most of that, ironically enough, is because he never gets hurt, or at least enough to miss any starts. So he's gone 160+ innings in back-to-back years. He's on pace for another 9 starts or so in Greenville and a total of around 150 innings. And that doesn't even consider the work that he'll probably get as a September call-up.

Looking at his game log, I'd say that Wainwright has had the same problems this year, but they're coming even earlier:

DATE  IP  H ER BB  K

6/20 3.0  7  5  0  1

6/24 5.0  4  4  2  2

6/30 6.0  4  2  3  7

7/05 3.2  8  6  4  3

7/15 6.0  6  2  2  4

Before that June 24th start, his ERA was 2.88 and he was striking out 8.5 per 9 innings. Since then, it's been a 7.22 ERA with a 6.5 K/9.

Logic might say that in this third full-season he would get stronger as his arm adjusted to so many innings. The problem with that reasoning is that it ignores the cumulative stress that almost 500 professional innings might have had on a 21-year-old arm.

Trust me, I know it's blasphemous to criticize the Braves' development of minor-league pitchers. And I know that my stat-only analysis isn't all there is to the story. But (continuing my fool-hardy theme of 'you heard it here first') in my opinion, Wainwright might not be the future ace that we're all hoping he could/should be.

With his 9th HR last night, Aaron Herr is trying joing the exclusive ranks of Braves' minor-leaguers with more HRs than walks. Johnny Estrada (2000) and Travis Wilson (1999) are both members.

Dan Meyer allowed 5 runs but also struck out 6 batters in 6 innings for Myrtle Beach. He now has a 3.04 ERA and 10.3 K/9 with the Pelicans.

Brian McCann went 2-for-4 with a double, and Kyle Davies whiffed 8 batters in 5 innings in Rome's loss. That gives Davies 107 Ks (one off the league lead) to go with just 37 walks.

There's still room on the "Keith Eichas Bandwagon" (.400/.436/.857), but seats are going quickly...

This was a historic blog entry, and one I hope everyone bookmarks. Not only did I passively equate Aldridge with Lombard, but I predicted the rise of Jurries and the fall of Wainwright. Let's hope I just go 1-for-3...

 
The life and times of Adam Wainwright, as presented by The Greenville News.

 
MLBBies for July 14
Ramon Castro - 2-for-4, 2 HRs
Efigenio Peralta - 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

The enigma that is Castro continues to hit in AA. He hit his first HRs of the year for Greenville and raised his numbers to .273/.367/.364. As you can see, most of his value has come via his OBP and excellent walk-rate. He's got 12 walks in 77 ABs at Greenville to go with his 10 walks in 84 ABs in Richmond. Castro is one of the few players in the Braves' system that has actually increased his BB/AB as he's progressed:

YEAR  BB/AB

1997  0.11

1998  0.07

1999  0.07

2000  0.11

2001  0.08

2002  0.18

2003  0.14

For his hitless performance, Peralta becomes the first reliever to win a coveted MLBBie. He's made 2 starts at Danville and 5 relief appearances at Rome. Combined, he has a 0.81 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 3.6 K/BB and batters are hitting just .208 against him. Plus, he goes by 'Efie' which gets him points right there...

Transactionally speaking, Ardley Jansen is off the DL and back with Rome. And who needs rehab? He went 2-for-4 with a walk in his return to action. He was disabled with a broken bone in his wrist for 6 weeks. Rome sent Angelo Burrows (.204/.255/.367 in 49 ABs) to Myrtle Beach.

After losing 8 of 9 to Tennessee just weeks ago, Greenville has now taken two straight from the Smokies. Last night, Chris Waters allowed 2 runs on 5 hits in 5 innings and picked up his 3rd win. Brett Evert, super-reliever, pitched 4 innings and got his first career save.

                   IP   BB/9  K/9  ERA   WHIP

Evert As Starter  42.0  3.6   5.8  5.79  1.67

Evert As Reliever 28.1  2.2   9.2  2.86  1.31

Andy Marte and Scott Thorman are both fresh off their Futures Game performances, but they weren't able to immediately help the Pelicans score any runs. Back-to-back shutouts and Myrtle Beach is now 7-16 in the second-half of the Carolina League season.

Matt Coenen walked 6 batters and allowed 2 runs in 5 innings of work in the loss.

Rome was on their way to two wins a row...until Fernando Tadefa allowed 2 runs to score in the 9th. Blaine Boyer started and surrendered 4 runs on 7 hits in 5 innings.

Josh Burrus had his 3rd-straight 2-hit game for Danville last night.

I don't have whiff-a-phobia (not to the extent of someone like Jerry Royster anyway), but a huge amount of strikeouts in a youngster does distress me a bit. Dean White had his second three-whiff outing in three days and now has 11 Ks in his last 20 ABs. Matt Esquivel is leading the team in strikeouts, but at least he has the .358 OBP to point to. White's is .323.

Jake Blakeney has put together 6 scoreless relief appearances covering 12.1 IP.

 
Sunday's Futures Game was notably lopsided towards the pitchers, although all three of the Braves participants reached base. Andy Marte went 0-for-1 with a walk. Adam LaRoche singled once in 2 ABs. And Scott Thorman got the last hit of the game, an opposite field single in his only AB. The World team won 5-1, and both teams' pitchers combined for 19 strikeouts.

 
MLBBies for July 13
Nick Green - 3-for-4, 2B, HR
Matt Wright - 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K

Green's been part of a mini-resurgence for Richmond, as they have won 6 of their last 8 games as they head into the All-Star break. They're, however, still stuck in last place, 7.5 games back of division-leading Durham. Green's hit .370/.452/.667 in the last 8 games with a double and 2 HRs. Not bad for the guy in the 9th spot in the lineup.

Wright's outing broke a long losing streak for Rome against Hickory. Since his demotion back to low-A, Wright has struck out 29 batters in 27.1 IP and given up just 4 earned runs - all in one outing.

Hitting Streaks:
Johnny Estrada - 7 games

Brian McCann and Wilson Betemit both went hitless.

Mike Hessman is back with Richmond. (He actually played on Saturday, but I always seem to miss something on my weekend blogging.) Rehab stats are always hard to judge. The point of rehab is to get the player involved in live action again, and while it's nice to hit the daylights out of the ball immediately, it usually doesn't happen. That's what Hessman's telling himself anyway. With Danville, he went 1-for-15 in 5 games with a couple of walks. He's already doing better than that at Richmond where he combined to go 2-for-9 this weekend.

R-Braves' manager Pat Kelly is quoted in today's Times-Dispatch as saying, "Our pitching and defense have carried us all year." Hard to argue with that. The pitching ranks 3rd in the league in ERA, and the offense is last in runs scored. And they are the only team averaging less than 4 runs per game.

Chuck Smith had another...[insert ambiguous adjective here]...start for Richmond. He gave up 8 hits and 4 walks in 6 innings but held Charlotte to 2 runs. He also picked up his first AAA win. So that gives him an ERA of 2.00 and a WHIP of 1.22 in 3 starts. It was also his second outing where he walked more batters than he struck out.

In other veteran pitcher news, Will Cunnane has yet to allow an earned run in his 5 appearances. He does have a couple of unearned runs that sneaked through. He's struck out 8 batters and allowed 5 hits in 7 innings.

Greenville's game was rained out.

Chuck Thomas has now hit in every spot in the Myrtle Beach lineup. He's been moved to batting 2nd in place of Greg Miller and has responded well. In the 4 games in that spot, he's hit .400/.438/.467. compared to Miller's .281/.351/.313 in 96 ABs.

Welcome back, Matt Butler. He made his first start in almost 2 years and allowed 1 run on 3 hits in 3 innings.

Backed by Wright's pitching and Carlos Guzman's HR, Rome blanked Hickory 4-0. Jeff Francoeur went 2-for-3 and has a hit in 11 of his last 12 games. So I don't destroy that good vibe, I won't mention that he has zero walks in the last 10 games. Oops.

I was e-mailing Peter Friberg, creator of the excellent and aptly-named PeterFriberg.com, about Francoeur's non-walkitude just last week and discovered an intruguing, though potentially misleading stat. This all has to do with sample size issues, I'm sure, but... Francoeur has a .341 SLG in games which he takes a free pass. In games where here doesn't walk, his SLG is .450. Compare that to Andy Marte, who has a .410 without walks, and a .556 with them.

Danville finished up Saturday's game and played an additional 9 innings yesterday. Josh Burrus went a combined 4-for-7 with a triple and a HR. Chuck James got a no-decision in the completed after giving up 2 runs on 4 hits in 5 innings. Steven Russell had his 3rd-straight 5-inning, 1-run performance. As a team, Danville has a league-best 2.99 ERA.

 
MLBBies for July 12
Keith Eichas - 4-for-5, 2 2B, 2 HR
Zach Miner - 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K

In my draft review, I called Eichas, plucked in the 17th round, a "power-hitting 1B." Well, he's also a power-hitting DH and even a one-time power-hitting CF. He made his first two appearances for Orlando as a pinch-hitter. In the 8 games since then, he's hit .458/.481/1.125 and now leads the team with 4 HRs.

Miner won his first game in a month and tied his season-high in strikeouts.

Hitting Streaks:
Brian McCann - 9 games
Wilson Betemit - 7 games
Johnny Estrada - 6 games

Nick Green and James Jurries went hitless.

Wilson Betemit extended his hitting streak with his 1st HR since May 20th - a run of 49 games.

Johnny Estrada went 3-for-4 for the 2nd-straight day.

Travis Wilson, who just went close to 60 ABs without taking a walk, took his second in as many days yesterday. His OBP is up to .293 - just slightly below his career average of .308. Ugh!

Just 6 days after his 9-inning, 1-unearned-run performance, Matt Belisle got steamrolled for 7 runs on 10 hits and lasted just 3 innings. The 5 walks didn't help things either.

Thanks to Miner's MLBBie-tastic outing, Myrtle Beach won despite hitting just 5 singles. The Pelicans were without the services of both Andy Marte and Scott Thorman as both made their way to Chicago for today's Futures Game (5:30 EST, ESPN2). Thorman was just added to the World roster after 1B Chin-Feng Chen was promoted to the majors.

Rome did even worse offensively (just 4 singles, one from Brian McCann) but lost 1-0. Ryan Ewin allowed the lone run on 5 hits in 6 innings. His ERA in his three Rome starts is a miniscule 0.56.

Danville's game was suspended by rain in the 6th inning and should be finished before today's scheduled start.

Carl Loadenthal batted leadoff for the second-straight game and went 2-for-4. Martin Prado, whom he replaced, had hit just .203/.298/.230 in the leadoff spot.

A day after ending his 17-game hitting streak, Carlos Moreta went 2-for-5 with a double. Jarrod Saltalamaccia also doubled.

Paul Bacot (1-0, 0.93 ERA) gave up just his 2nd run of the season and struck out 3 in 4 innings.

 
Anup Sinha from TeamOne Baseball attended the Southern League All-Star Game and had this to say about Adam Wainwright:

The 6-8 Wainwright started the game and it only took him about three minutes to finish his lone inning of work. He’s shockingly athletic and coordinated for such a long, lanky kid, and threw 90-91 MPH, putting his fastball right where he wanted. Wainwright’s curveball is a slow but sharp downer that gets punchouts. He only threw one change, and it had all the makings. Wainwright’s polished and he isn’t too far from the big leagues. His stuff isn’t dominant like [Edwin] Jackson’s, but he has better pitchability right now.

 
MLBBies for July 11
Scott Thorman - 3-for-4, 2 2B, HR
Anthony Lerew - 7 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 2 K

Thorman's just finished his best week of the season. In the 6 games since last Saturday - all played at home, Thorman has hit .348/.400/.826 with 5 doubles and 2 HRs.

Lerew's free passes kept him from having a dominating performance, but he still managed to lower his ERA to 2.23, good for 6th in the league.

Hitting Streaks:
Brian McCann - 8 games
Wilson Betemit - 6 games
Nick Green - 6 games
James Jurries - 6 games

Carlos Moreta, Andy Marte and Keith Eichas all had their respective streaks snapped.

Johnny Estrada went 3-for-4 with 2 doubles and is hitting .368/.400/.526 over the last 5 games.

Another strange pitching line last night - this one from Chris Fussell: 5.2 IP, 3 H, 6 ER, 3 BB, 10 K.

Billy Sylvester walked the bases loaded in the 9th inning, but Greenville survived for their first win in almost a week.

Yaron Peters homered for the first time since May 24 and hit his first as a Pelican.

Matt Esquivel, who had a HR and single last night, has 4 multi-hit games in his last 5 outings. He raised his average to .333 - 7th in the Appy League.

Jaime Romak, the Braves' 4th-rounder out of Canada, went hitless in his professional debut in Orlando.

Jo Jo Reyes struck out 6 and allowed just 1 earned run in 4 innings of work.

 
Miguel Bernard has been placed on the DL with an injured left thumb and Jose Capellan's been called up from his Orlando rehab.

 
Matt Butler, who missed all of 2002 after having Tommy John surgery, is back with Myrtle Beach. The now 23-year-old was one of the Braves' mid-level pitching prospects after his 2000 season where he went 13-7 with a 2.94 ERA for Macon. Butler was the Braves' 1st pick in the '99 draft. Just a few months ago, Bill Ballew at BA said, "And I think it's safe to say that Butler is all but toast." A strange phrase that could be taken as a positive, but it doubt it was meant that way.

Upon activating him, the Braves released Marcel Vianna (2.96 ERA). The 22-year-old reliever was having a decent season until his 4-run, 1-out performance last Sunday.

 
This note from Josh Boyd at Baseball America:

Braves righthander Jose Capellan, rehabbing from a sore elbow, topped out at 99 mph in the GCL yesterday. He struck out 10 in five innings, and is expected to rejoin low Class A Rome, where he was 0-2, 3.79 this season.

Every boxscore I've seen shows 7 Ks, not 10. I like the 99-mph reference though...

 
MLBBies for July 10
Wilson Betemit - 3-for-4, has a hit in 10 of his last 12 games
Dan Meyer - 6.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K

Yeah, I'm probably the only person left who thinks that Betemit still has a chance to be an above-average major-leaguer. He's still not showing much power, but he's making good contact lately and taking a few walks, so I'll take what I can get.

Meyer did last night's work at Coastal Federal, but he's got a 1.53 ERA in one road and two home starts for MB. Combined with his Rome starts, he's struck out more than 31% of the batters he's faced and has a very nice (to say the least) 116/18 K/BB ratio.

Hitting Streaks:
Carlos Moreta - 17 games
Brian McCann - 7 games
Andy Marte - 6 games
Keith Eichas - 6 games

Jarrod Saltalamaccia came back from his rolled ankle a day ahead of schedule and went 1-for-2 with a double and a walk.

Andy Pratt went 6.1 innings for Richmond and allowed 2 runs on 5 hits while striking out 6. Both runs that he gave up came on solo HRs.

Greenville's offense hasn't been nearly as powerful as everyone predicted it would be. They currently rank 6th in the 10-team Southern League in runs scored. Losing Adam LaRoche to Richmond and disappointing half-seasons by Richard Lewis and Cory Aldridge sure haven't helped. But a key part of their offensive woes have to be rooted in the leadoff position. They've used 6 different players there and have a cumulative .256 BA and .322 OBP.

Player      Games  AVG  OBP

Langerhans    31  .240 .326

Lewis         28  .270 .323

Aldridge      11  .283 .327

Castro         9  .297 .350

Orr            7  .172 .250

Thomas         1  .250 .400

Only Ramon Castro has had what could be called success in the #1 spot. Luckily, he's been the most recent choice as well.

Greenville's bullpen had some troubles last night as Ray Aguilar, Kevin Barry and Billy Sylvester all surrendered late runs. Add in the use of Brett Evert and Willie Collazo, and it means Dan Curtis is going to need to put in some innings tonight.

Bryon Jeffcoat has moved up from MB to help in Kelly Johnson's absence.

Chuck Thomas went 3-for-4 with a double for MB.

Ralph Roberts has allowed just 2 runs in his last 17 games - a span of 24 innings.

Every Rome starter had a hit last night except for Wes Timmons.

Kyle Davies cruised through the first 5 innings but ran into trouble in the 6th and ended up allowing 4 runs to score. Efie Peralta lowered his ERA to 0.73 with Rome and 0.88 overall.

Picture a whole row of 3's and you've got Charlie Morton's pitching line last night: 3 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 3K. That's consistency. His ERA in his last 3 (there it is again!) starts is 9.00.

Luis Atilano seems to still be on a fairly strict pitch count. He went 4 more innings yesterday and has a total of just 15 IP in 4 starts. For a comparison, Jose Ascanio, who always seems to follow Atilano, has already pitched 17 innings in relief. Atilano's given up a lot of hits - 20 in those 15 innings - and has only struck out 2 batters.

 
The Times-Dispatch is reporting that Damon Hollins' season is over due to a torn ligament in his left thumb.

 
The G-Braves may soon be playing with a 12-man roster... Kelly Johnson was placed on the DL today with tendonitis in his right elbow. They'll almost definitely call someone since they now have no extra infielders. I'm pulling for 24-year-old Isaac Iorg (.276/.333/.379) even though he hasn't been too hot lately. Bryon Jeffcoat (.240/.351/.313), who's played more games at SS, is another possibility.

 
I try to make this an interactive experience...

One of these Greenville relievers was released today. You make the call!

Name              ERA   WHIP  AGE 

Ray Aguilar      4.33   1.28   23

Kevin Barry      6.00   1.39   24

Willie Collazo   3.65   1.38   23

Billy Sylvester  1.80   1.10   26

Joe Winkelsas    2.93   1.23   29

If you went with age over beauty, you win! Winkelsas, who had been on the DL, got his walking papers today. The Greenville roster stands at 23.

Winkelsas' career numbers: 22-26, 3.30 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 238 games, 54 saves, 5.8 K/9, 3.4 BB/9

 
Baseball America has geared up for the trade deadline by listing teams' available and untouchable prospects that might be included in a deal. For the Braves, they list Andy Marte, Adam Wainwright, Dan Meyer, Macay McBride, and Bubba Nelson as "untouchables.' Wilson Betemit and Kelly Johnson are 'available.'

Call me silly, but Jeff Francoeur would also have to be in that first group. Scott Thorman and Adam LaRoche would also have to be pretty darn close to untouchable, if only because of the relative lack of position players. That would also leave highly-regarded pitchers such as Andy Pratt, Matt Belisle, Gonzalo Lopez and Kyle Davies in the mix somewhere too.

 
MLBBies for July 9
Brian McCann - 3-for-4, HR, BB, SB
Jason Marquis - 9 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K

So let's see... In Marquis's last 7 starts, he's averaged 7.1 innings, has an ERA of 1.59 and a K/BB ratio of 2.6. Hmm, looks like he needs more work...

McCann extended his hit streak to 6 games (.455/.520/.636), while Jeff Francoeur went 0-for-5 which stopped his 5-gamer. Carlos Moreta just keeps on hitting. After yesterday's triple, he's up to 16 straight games with a hit. Steve Doetsch's streak was snapped at 10 games.

A close MLBBie runner-up was Jose Capellan after he tossed 5 scoreless innings for Orlando. His rehab should be just about up, although he might be able to get in one more start before he reaches the 30-day limit. He's got a 2.65 ERA in his 5 starts.

Scott Thorman hit his 8th HR last night and had his 1st multi-RBI game in a month. The RBI stat is an intriguing one, because while he can't control the number of men on base when he bats, his lack of power isn't helping drive any runners in when they are there for him. The cumulative OBP of the 3 batters before him in the last month is .352 - a decent number. Andy Marte, always betting before Thorman, has cleared the bases a few times and probably taken a good deal of Thorman's possible RBI away from him. But we also shouldn't ignore that before last night, the first-baseman had just 8 extra-base hits in the last month.

Matt Coenen followed up 2 ugly starts with a very nice 5-inning, 2-hit outing. Hopefully his recent binge of more-walks-than-strikeouts is over. The 12-step program might just be working.

Alec Zumwalt ('Zummy' to his friends) had a couple of bad outings early in the year which are skewing his still-good 2.43 ERA. Since May 2nd, Zumwalt has allowed just 2 runs in 24.2 IP for a 0.73 ERA.

Blaine Boyer allowed 1 earned run in 6 innings last night for Rome and struck out 6 batters.

I'd say Matt Esquivel, stuck in Danville for another year, has turned things around. He hit .206/.250/.235 in his first 9 games and .426/.471/.702 since.

That thud you heard last night was Danny Collins falling out of the Appy League's ERA leaderboard. His ERA went from 1.13 to 3.00 after giving up 6 runs (4 earned) in just 2 innings.

Dan Smith - K Machine. Two more yesterday give him 22 in 14 innings. Did I mention he's walked just one batter? And has a WHIP of 0.57? And the best part is, I still have no idea who he is or where he came from.

 
Today's topic: stolen bases. I'm not sure why, but it is. SBs are a lot of fun to see, and part of me remorses the fact that they're just not a smart play anymore. In this decade-plus of success, we as Braves fans have gone from watching Otis Nixon swipe 72 bases in 1991 to Rafael Furcal managing just 27 last year - and getting caught 15 times. Anyone want to guess who the team leader was in 1994? None other than Fred "Wheels" McGriff. He had 7.

The problem with steals is that a player has to be successful around 75% of the time, or else they actually are a detriment to the offense. Not many players can maintain that rate, let alone entire teams. So in honor of, um, some free time I've had, here's more information about steals in the Braves' system than you ever really wanted to know....

Success Rate
Atlanta - 80% (41 of 51)
Richmond - 74% (74 of 100)
Greenville - 66% (61 of 92)
Myrtle Beach - 62% (74 of 120)
Rome - 71% (102 of 143)
Danville - 77% (43 of 56)
Orlando - 57% (13 of 23)

Bobby Cox may not send his players very often, but they're definitely getting their bang-for-the-buck.

Attempts per Game
Atlanta - 0.58
Richmond - 1.08
Greenville - 1.07
Myrtle Beach - 1.40
Rome - 1.70
Danville - 2.55
Orlando - 1.28

In Rome, Rocket Wheeler is living up to his prediliction for running. But Danville's numbers are just amazing.

Best Success Rate (minimum: 10 attempts)
Rafael Furcal - 93% (14 of 15)
Jamie Hemingway - 85% (11 of 13)
Willie James - 84% (16 of 19)
Bo Porter - 81% (13 of 16)
Gary Sheffield - 78% (11 of 14)

Furcal's having a remarkable year on the basepaths. Even if his total number of steals is decreasing, the team's at least getting more value from his attempts. Hemingway has been a speed-demon so far for Danville. And it's good to see that the 30-year-old Porter has rediscovered his youth. He stole 50+ bases twice in his younger days.

Worst Success Rate (minimum: 10 attempts)
Ryan Langerhans - 44% (8 of 18)
Carlos Duran - 57% (8 of 14)
Tony Pena - 59% (10 of 17)
Greg Miller - 64% (9 of 14)
Gregor Blanco - 67% (22 of 33)

Langerhans' SB totals keep shrinking, and by his success rate, I'd say that's a good thing. These other four numbers really surprise me. I would've guessed that they had more speed than they're currently showing. Having Blanco and Miller batting 1-2 in the Pelicans' lineup sure isn't helping their run output.

So which players actually attempt a steal the most often when presented with the opportunity? The closest I can get is to look at the number of attempts divided by the number of times that a player is on 1st base.

Percentage of SB Attempts for Each Instance on 1B
Jamie Hemingway - 52%
Onil Joseph - 45%
Willie James - 43%
Dean White - 41%
Josh Burrus - 38%

So not only is Hemingway extremely successful, but he attempts a steal every other time he's on 1B. Contrast that to Furcal who only steals 15% of the time that he stands on 1st.

15%?!? This from the guy who attempted a steal 65% of the time he was on base in 1999 and swiped a total of 96!

Ah, the good ol' days...

 
MLBBies for July 8:
Keith Eichas: 1-for-4, HR in second-straight game
Steven Russell: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K

Sure, Chuck Smith threw more innings, didn't allow a run, and struck out more batters. But Russell isn't facing opponents 8 years younger than himself. At least. I have nothing personal against Smith. I'm sure he's a fine human being. And his surgically-repaired elbow seems to be holding up just fine. But when you have a heap of young pitchers ready to make the step to the majors any day now, Smith - as good as he might be - is still just an aging roadblock.

Streak update: Jesse Garcia went 0-for-5, so his 9-game stretch is over. Carlos Moreta and Steve Doestch both singled and extended theirs to 15 and 8 games, respectively.

Here's another fun streak: Travis Wilson hasn't walked in 16 games. Sadly, that's just his 3rd-longest dry-spell of the year.

Joe Dawley has 4 saves in his last 6 games. His ERA in those games? 9.64!

Ryan Basner now leads the Appy League in ERA (0.49) after his scoreless 3 innings yesterday. It's rare for a reliever to get enough innings to qualify, but Basner has pitched 3 innings four times already this season.

 
Here's a summary of last night's Southern League All-Star Game. All four G-Braves (Wainwright, Langerhans, Jurries and McCarthy) made an impact in the East's 7-5 win.

 
Matt Merricks was placed on the DL for Myrtle Beach. That's the move that allowed room for Tillery to be activated.

Chuck Smith threw 7 shutout innings for Richmond, struck out 7 and allowed just 3 hits. Due to a lack of games (Greenville and Myrtle Beach were off tonight), I'm afraid I might have to award Smith a coveted MLBBie tommorow. Trust me, I don't want to. Hopefully someone at Danville or Orlando will help me out.

 
Damon Hollins, who's missed just 3 games this year, has been placed on Richmond's 7-day DL with a sprained left thumb. Since Mike Hessman's back seems to be doing ok, I assume he'll be the other half of the roster move.

 
Jim Callis at Baseball America compares Johnny Estrada, Brian McCann and Jarrod Saltalamaccia in his latest "Ask BA." For those of you who see clicking on the link as just too much work, I'll summarize.

---Estrada's offensive numbers are a fluke, and he's still regarded as just a defensive catcher. McCann is a better hitter, and has a better arm, but he's not as good of a game-caller as Estrada. Salty has the best overall package, but it's, of course, too early to tell how he'll progress.---

The only real argument that could be made about any of that regards Estrada's awesome season. Here are his AAA stats for 2001-2003:

YEAR   G  AB   H  TB 2B 3B HR BB SO  AVG  OBP  SLG BB/AB

2001  32 131  38  51 13  0  0  5  6 .290 .319 .389  .04

2002 118 434 159 232 40  0 11 31 59 .281 .326 .411  .06

2003  72 239  80 119 21  0  6 20 19 .335 .399 .498  .08

He spent a good deal of 2001 in the majors, but there are still some trends that can be spotted from these minor-league numbers.

Obviously he's having a tremendous 2003, and no one should assume that he's going to carry those numbers into Atlanta. Except maybe the walk-rate. Anything under .10 is below-average, but the fact that he's gotten better every year at plate discipline is definitely a good sign. Another factor to consider is that based on his age he's entering his offensive prime. Due to the inexplicable re-signing of Henry Blanco, Estrada probably has to be content with having his career-best year in AAA rather than in the majors, but he should still have a few years of increased production. Also keep in mind that there's always a dropoff from AAA stats to major-league numbers, just because of the greater level of competition.

So after putting those career stats and all those factors into my giant super-computer, I can see Estrada hitting around .270/.330/.430 for Atlanta in 2004 which is ever-so-slightly above-average for a catcher. And a lot closer to the 2001 version of Javy Lopez (.267/.322/.425) than either the horrible 2002 edition or the spectacular 2003 one. But it's still eons better than Blanco.

 
I'm thinking of instituting Player- and Pitcher-of-the-Day awards just for my own amusement. They shall henceforth be known as the MLBBies (pronounced 'mil-bees' for you who are anagrammatically-impaired). They'll be, for the most part, subjective, and bribery is definitely encouraged. Whomever wins the most in a season (or partial season, in this year's case) will receive an extra-hearty KUDOS! or something equally as cheap and easy. I've always said that if there's something this world needs more of, it's meaningless awards...

Today's inaugural MLBBies:
Onil Joseph - 3-for-4, 3B, SB
Paul Bacot - 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K

The Times-Dispatch reported yesterday that Mike Hessman was back with the R-Braves and took batting practice on Sunday. I guess he went ahead and made the 5-hour drive to Bluefield, WV because he went 0-for-2 with a walk in Danville's game there yesterday.

Adam LaRoche went 0-for-3 with a sac fly and snapped his 9-game hitting streak. Jesse Garcia singled and carried his streak to 10 games. Other streaks: Carlos Moreta (14), Steve Doetsch (7), Jeff Francoeur (5) and Brian McCann (5).

Buddy Hernandez has worked 9 consecutive scoreless innings over the last 6 games. During that time, he's struck out 7, given up 7 hits, and walked no one.

Zach Miner allowed 2 runs on 4 hits in 6 innings last night for Myrtle Beach and struck out 7. A good start for him, although if you guessed that he did it at pitcher-friendly Coastal Federal Field, then you get a gold star.

Miner's ERA
Home: 3.28
Road: 4.59

Rome lost despite Onil "Mr. MLBBie" Joseph's 3-hit performance. Matt Wright (2-1, 1.69 ERA) surrendered 3 unearned runs in the loss but struck out 6 in 6 innings.

Chuck James came off a 10-day layoff and pitched just 2.1 innings for Danville. He gave up a season-high in hits (5) and wasn't his usual strikeout-self, recording just 1 whiff. He also allowed his first runs of the year, and his ERA skyrocketed...all the way to 0.60.

After their first 17 games last year, Orlando had a 7-10 record and was being outscored by more than a run-and-a-half per game. This year, the offense is much better (thank you, Mr. Doetsch), and the pitching staff has allowed almost 2 fewer runs per game. After yesterday's 6-0 win, the team now stands at 11-6. Martin Prado, Cole Barthel, Carlos Moreta, Carl Loadenthal and Raul Ortega all had multiple hits. Keith Eichas hit his 1st HR.

Alongside the MLBBie-ful performance of Bacot, the O-Braves got 4 shutout innings of relief from Matt Harrison and Devin Anderson.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia had a good workout in the batting cage yesterday and might try to come back from his ankle injury ahead of schedule.

Josh Tillery has been reinstated from the DL for Myrtle Beach. Haven't heard anything on the necessary corresponding move. I hate getting only half the story...

Chris Waters has been placed on the suspended list. The rule book says you earn a spot there for "insubordination or other misconduct or for violation by the player of any regulation or other provision of the player's contract." No word on what he did or for how long he's out for. He was scheduled to start on Friday.

Ryan Glynn was sold to the Samsung Lions of the Korean League. If boxscores are available, his name should be easy to spot.

 
Someone in the Orlando area responded to my request and is now my unofficial rumormonger, er I mean, contributor. Since no newspaper covers the O-Braves, any news that I pass along will be courtesy of someone who prefers to go by Bravesx2. The first tidbit: Jarrod Saltalamaccia (I just like typing the name) is injured, but not as a result of the HBP like I thought. He rolled his ankle trying to break up a double play and has been resting it for a few days. He should be back in action by Friday.

Edwin Martinez was brought down to fill in for another lame catcher, Ramon Cruz. Cruz has been playing with an injured throwing hand and needs some time off to heal.

 
Complete games are definitely a rarity these days - and they probably should be in the minor leagues. There's no sense in running up a pitch count when you're trying to develop the future. But they're still fun to see in the boxscore. Matt Belisle tossed just the second 9-inning complete game in the organization yesterday. Jason Marquis also turned the trick for Richmond on May 29.

Belisle (5-7, 3.24 ERA) struck out 9, walked 1, allowed 7 hits and just 1 unearned run in Sunday's win. He also happened to go 2-for-2 at the plate.

I guess Billy McCarthy was just getting some rest. He pinch-hit yesterday for his first appearance in a week.

Hit streaks are at nine games and counting for Adam LaRoche and Jesse Garcia. Bo Porter went 2-for-4 yesterday and now has a 6-game streak.

Macay McBride might be starting to tire a bit. He surrendered 9 hits yesterday in 5 innings and struck out just one batter. In fact, he has just 9 Ks and 8 BBs in his last 18 innings.

Jeff Francoeur went 2-for-4 yesterday and raised his numbers to .292/.325/.448. He also 7 hits in last 15 ABs. Brian McCann (.291/.335/.494) also went 2-for-4.

Mike Mueller returned from the DL and started yesterday's game. He worked 2 scoreless innings before coming out. Efie Peralta took over, worked 4.2 IP, and allowed his first run of the year for Rome. His cumulative ERA at Rome and Danville is now 0.99.

Mike Hanson (.299/.351/.507) hit a triple and HR yesterday, but Cory Blackmon's odd pitching line - .2 IP, 3 H, 5 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 0 K, 1 HR - meant a loss for the D-Braves. The unearned runs were all a result of Blackmon's own error. Oops.

Greenville has sent Billy McCarthy, Adam Wainwright, Ryan Langerhans and James Jurries to the Southern League All-Star Game to be played tomorrow night. The G-Braves are off until Thursday.

 
Some highlights from Saturday:

Andy Pratt tossed 6 shutout innings and struck out 8. He's now 1st in the league in Ks with 114 in 101 innings and 6th in ERA (3.03).

Jesse Garcia, Adam LaRoche and Ramon Castro each have 8-game hitting streaks.

James Jurries is off to a hot July. In the last 5 games, he's hit .450/.476/.900 with 3 doubles and 2 HRs.

After getting things right, Adam Wainwright had another bad start - this time surrendering a season-high 6 runs in 3.2 IP. And for the first time this year, he issued more walks (4) than strikeouts (3).

Willie Collazo, who came in in relief of Wainwright, had been averaging an inning per appearance. Last night, he went 5 innings. And he did remarkably well, giving up just 1 unearned run and striking out 5.

Andy Marte and Brayan Pena each hit HRs last night for Myrtle Beach. It was Marte's 9th and just the 2nd for Pena. Pena also had 2 singles and raised his average to .322.

Dan Meyer improved to 2-0 after allowing 2 runs on 4 hits in 5 innings. He struck out 5 and walked just
1.

Ryan Ewin left Rome's game with a no-hitter intact. He pitched 5 innings (can you say 'pitch count?') and struck out 6 batters. So since taking Meyer's spot in the rotation, Ewin has thrown 10 scoreless innings, yielded just 3 hits and has struck out 9.

Charles Morton had another not-so-good start for Danville. As a starter this year, Morton has a 6.43 ERA and 1.86 WHIP. After being drafted in the 3rd round last year, Morton compiled a 4.54 ERA and a 1.68 WHIP in 5 starts and 6 relief appearances at Danville.

When I write that someone went 3-for-4 with 2 HRs for Orlando yesterday, I hope the name 'Steve Doetsch' immediately pops into your mind. Doetsch took over the league batting average lead (.431). I could go on, but I'll spare you my Doetsch-love today. Ok, one bit of minutae... The GCL Braves are currently 7th in the league in average with a .231. Without Doetsch, they'd be last at .206.

I mentioned yesterday that Jarrod Saltalamaccia left Friday's game after being hit by a pitch. He didn't play on Saturday. But catcher Edwin Martinez , who had been at Danville, did. There's almost never any news out of the Gulf Coast League (if anyone would like to be my Orlando source, then e-mail me), so this is unfortunately just conjecture. But if the younger Salty were indeed injured, sending down another catcher from Danville would make a lot of sense.

The problem (mine, anyway) is not knowing how serious that injury could be. The 20-year-old Martinez didn't get in a lot of games in Orlando last year and has been used mainly as a PH at Danville (Pyzik and Barden have split the C duties there), so it may just be a way to get him in some more games while Jarrod is dinged up. Well, let's at least hope for just a ding rather than a full-blown ouch.

 
The Brian Almeida conundrum has been resolved. In the bureaucratic way of minor-league transactions, Almieda was activated form the DL, transferred to Rome, and them placed on the DL again. So why was he even moved? Well, it does open a spot on the Danville roster, so perhaps we'll see someone make the jump from Orlando soon.

Darren Bragg continues to struggle (some would say 'suck') for Atlanta. He's hitting just .149/.196/.161 in 56 games. Why not bring up perpetual minor-leaguer, Damon Hollins to play some OF and PH every once in a while. No one can be worse than Bragg. And while Hollins in his 12th season in the minors for a reason, the Braves might be able to capitalize on his recent hot streak. Hollins has reached base safely in 14 of his last 15 games and hit .316/.339/.596 with 4 HRs over that period.

Some other Richmond hitting streaks:
LaRoche (7 games) - .481/.548/.704
Garcia (7 games) - .350/.366/.425
Porter (5 games) - .412/.444/.588

Chuck Smith and Will Cunnane made their debuts for Richmond on Thursday. Smith gave up 2 earned runs in 5 innings. He allowed just 2 hits, but he walked 4 batters. Cunnane struck out 2 and gave up a hit in 1 inning of relief.

Jason Marquis have a decent start last night, but he's going to need to be more than decent to get back in Bobby Cox's good graces. He allowed 3 runs and struck out 6 in 6 innings. The Times-Dispatch reports that Boston scouts were in attendance. (They also mentioned an article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution which I think, in principle, is just a bad idea.) A quote by Marquis sounds like he's resigned to the fact that his future might not lie in Atlanta.

Dan Curtis made his 1st start of the year in Greenville on Thursday. He allowed 3 runs and didn't make it out of the 5th inning. Ryan Langerhans is mired in a bad streak and has just 2 hits in his last 27 ABs. Billy McCarthy has vanished. He hasn't appeared in a game since Monday. And Billy Sylvester is dominating AA once again. He's struck out 28 batters in 20 innings and allowed just 9 hits. Lefties are batting just .053 against him. He's also gone 5 appearances without walking anyone.

In Myrtle Beach, Andy Marte has just 2 extra-base hits in his last 50 ABs.

Matt Merricks allowed 4 runs in 3.2 IP for Myrtle Beach on Thursday, and Matt Coenen gave up 5 runs in 4 IP yesterday. The offense isn't helping matters as the Pelicans have scored just 9 runs in the last 4 games. Not coincidentally, they've lost all 4 games.

The only two knocks I have against Jeff Francoeur are his streakiness and his walk rate. The streakiness is still there (3 hits one night, then a couple of 0-fors...) and is not unusual in a young player, but at least his knowledge of the strike zone seems to be improving. Maybe.

He walked just 8 times in his first 67 games this year - a rate on par with the infamous Travis Wilson. Ick. But in his last 10 games, Francoeur has walked 6 times. Which makes his numbers overall look a lot better. In the last 9 games, he's hit .353/.436/.471.

Brian McCann has continued his hot streak. He's had a hit in 11 of his last 12 games and has hit .413/.460/.696 with 3 HRs in that span.

Rome's last 4 starters (Wright, Boyer, Davies and Lerew) have struck out 29 batters (and walked just 4) in 28 innings. But because the offense has just managed 5 runs in that time, the team has managed to lose 3 of those 4 games.

Ben Thomas, the Braves' 15th rounder, started off slow in Danville, going hitless in his first 14 ABs. Since then, he's hit .327 (16-for-49). Mike Hessman went 1-for-4 with a walk in his first rehab appearance on Thursday.

Steve Russell had his best outing of the year on Thursday: 5 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 6K. It was his third 2-hit outing in 4 starts. Danny Collins followed up that perfomance yesterday with this line: 5 IP, 1 H, 0R, 3 BB, 3K. He dropped his ERA to 1.13, good for 5th in the league.

In fact, here are the top 5 pitchers in the Appy League by ERA:

Chuck James    0.00

Orionny Lopez  0.00

Ryan Basner    0.59

Whitt Farr     0.71

Danny Collins  1.13

Needless to say, the Danville Braves lead the league in pitching.

Orlando's Carlos Moreta is in the midst of a 12-game hit streak. During the streak, he's hit .341/.375/.545. Steve Doetsch put together a 5-game streak. He's now second in the league in batting average (.407) and on-base percentage (.467). Keith Eichas got his first professional hit on Thursday. Cole Barthel is now 0-for-7 on his rehab assignment.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia was hit by a pitch yesterday in his first AB and was taken out of the game. He and his brother Justin are both off to slow starts. Combined, the Brothers Saltalamacchia have hit .157/.263/.243.

Jose Ascanio has a 1.29 ERA (and 3 wins) in 4 relief appearances. Jose Capellan tossed 4 scoreless innings in his latest rehab start. Jake Stevens, the Braves' 5th overall selection in the '03 draft, allowed 4 runs in his first outing of the year. Since then, he's struck out 12 batters and walked none in 11.1 IP and posted a 0.79 ERA.

 
Well, I was expecting a transaction from Rome, but not his one. Barry Mabry, who was in his 4th season with the Braves, was released tonight. Well, sort of in his 4th. He injured himself in his first outing last year and missed the rest of the season. He had a nice 2001 in Danville. He struck out 55 batters in 56 innings and walked just 18. This year, he appeared in 15 games between Rome and Myrtle Beach and posted a cumulative 2.63 ERA.

Here's a look at his career numbers:

44 G, 103.1 IP, 97 H, 90 K, 29 BB, 2.87 ERA, 1.22 WHIP

Also tonight, Mike Mueller was reinstated from the DL. That still leaves the question of the corresponding Almeida move...

 
It was a day of good pitching for the Braves - in the majors and minors. Richmond was the only loser on Wednesday, and it took a Nick Green throwing error in the 9th to give that game away. Sam McConnell made his 2nd start of the year, and allowed 2 runs in 6 innings. Johnny Estrada pinch-hit late in the game, so at least we know he's not dead.

Adam LaRoche had an uncharacteristically slow start after his promotion to AAA, but I think it's safe to say that he's adjusted fairly nicely.

First 14 games - .176/.250/.353
Last 6 games - .500/.556/.750

Bubba Nelson and 3 relievers combined on a 5-hit shutout for Greenville. Nelson (7-7, 3.09 ERA) struck out 6 in 6 innings. He's got a 1.95 ERA in his last 6 starts.

Myrtle Beach was rained out.

Rome came about one pitch away from recording shutouts in both games of their doubleheader. Matt Wright (2-0, 2.35 ERA with Rome) struck out the first 5 batters he faced and cruised to a 3-hit, 8 K win. Blaine Boyer had similar success but gave up a 2-run HR in the final inning and took the loss in Game 2. Onil Joseph singled in both games.

Danville was off.

Why is Steve Doetsch still in Orlando? After going 3-for-3 yesterday, he's now hitting .422/.490/.622. Sure, it's only been 13 games. And he's only 19. And in Orlando, he at least gets to play everyday. Alright, I guess I answered my own question.

Eduardo Rosario, Dan Smith, Adam Stanley and Devin Anderson combined on the 3-hitter. In 4 outings, Smith has struck out more than half the batters he's faced and has a 0.40 WHIP.

Transactionally speaking, Brian Almeida was reinstated from the DL and assigned to Rome. No word yet on a corresponding move. Frankie Arteaga has been un-suspended (my word), and is on Danville's roster. And Alexis Candelario, we hardly knew you. He's moved from the Orlando bullpen to the Dominican League.

 
Now that Chuck Smith has moved his belongings out of Greenville, Dan Curtis can go back to being a starter. Not that his relief work hasn't been outstanding. He started the year as a reliever in AA and allowed just 1 run in 7.1 innings. He got one relief appearance in Myrtle Beach, coming into the game for an injured Matt Coenen on May 7, and struck out 10 batters in 6 innings. So his cumulative relief numbers look like this:

16.1 IP, 12 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 5 BB, 18K, 1 HR, 1.10 ERA, 1.04 WHIP

He's not too shabby of a starter either. Coming into the year, his career ERA stood at 3.27. This season's 4.04 ERA doesn't look too hot, but he's given up 2 earned runs or less in half of his 12 starts. Not coincidentally, all six of those excellent starts came at Coastal Federal Field.

Here's how their starting rotation now stacks up:

Wainwright, Belisle, Nelson, Curtis, Waters

In Tuesday night's action...

Richmond finally got some offense going, pounding out 13 hits, including 2 doubles from Travis Wilson and a HR from Damon Hollins. Ok, here's your Travis Wilson Fun Fact o' the Day: He's been hit by pitches 6 times this year. He's walked 5 times. Which means that without the HBPs, his OBP falls to a miniscule .282. Way to go, Travis!

I know I'm a day behind here, but Johnny Estrada was hit by a pitch Monday night and immediately left the game. He also sat on Tuesday. There was nothing about it in Richmond's paper, so I'm assuming it was nothing too serious. From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, here's an interesting result of his absence from last night's game: "...[C]atcher Mike Hubbard was thrown out at the plate by five steps trying to score from first base, ending the inning." Good thing they won.

James Jurries went 4-for-4 with a HR and Greenville snapped their 8-game losing streak. Huzzah! Roman Colon gave up 2 runs in 2 relief innings, but got the much-coveted win.

Greg Miller, a forgotten OF at Myrtle Beach, went 3-for-5 with 2 steals in the Pelicans' loss. For those keeping track (me), he's had a hit in 12 of his last 14 games (.346/.414/.423). Then again, he's 24 and still in A-ball. Miller was a 20th-round pick of the Braves in 2001 out of James Madison Univ. He's really only missing power from his game (0 professional HRs), but that's probably more than enough to keep him from being a regular in the majors.

His career numbers through yesterday: .290/.353/.340 with just 38 XBH in 835 ABs. As expected, he had a little more power in college. He had 6 HRs in his senior season and hit .348/.409/.482.

Rome was rained out at home. Big shocker there. Tropical Depression Bill took his medication and has moved on, so they should be back in action tonight.

Sean White gave up just 2 earned runs for Danville but took the loss.

Paul Bacot pitched in his 3rd game (and his 1st relief appearance) yesterday. I know, you're saying, "But isn't this the first mention of Bacot in your supposedly all-knowing blog?!?" True enough. What can I say? With rainouts and the lack of reporting by some sites, these GCL boxscores can get tricky sometimes. Here, I'll make it up to you:

Date  IP  H  R ER BB  K HR GS

6/20 3.0  2  1  1  0  2  0  1

6/26 3.1  3  0  0  0  2  0  1

7/01 4.0  1  0  0  1  1  0  0

Just to break things up a bit, here are two articles on non-Braves: Pat Clayton, an unsigned pick from last year's draft; and Brad McCann, Brian's older brother.

 
Thanks to Sam/Hobbes who was listening to the Richmond game on the radio, we now know that the Braves have signed reliever Will Cunnane to make up for the loss of Bobby M. Jones. The right-hander is 29 years old and has been with the Marlins, Padres, Brewers, and most recently, the Cubs.

Cunnane was a Rule 5 selection by the Padres in December of 1996 and because of the stipulations, he remained with the major-league team for all of the '97 season. He made 54 appearances and posted a 5.81 ERA on a really bad Padres team. You'd think that with that high of an ERA that the team would have either offered him back to his original team (Marlins) or at least let him be the invisible man in the bullpen. No need. You could argue that Cunnane was one of the better non-Hoffman relievers on that team.

By relief appearances:

Player     ERA 

Worrell    5.16

Cunnane    5.81

Bochtler   4.77

Bergman    6.09

Bruske     3.63

Vera       5.11

Smith      4.81

Murray     6.75

Scott      7.85

Batchelor  7.82

Burrows   10.45

Kroon      7.15

It's not like Cunnane was taking up some worthy player's roster spot.

As with a lot of pitchers, he's been very good in AAA and not so good in the majors.

League W   L   ERA    G   GS   IP     H   ER    BB   K   WHIP  K/9 BB/9

AAA    14  10  3.18  140  20  283.0  280  100   98  291  1.34  9.3  3.1

Majors 10   9  5.36  155  12  241.2  280  144  118  203  1.65  7.6  4.4

Baseball Prospectus 2003's analysis:
"Cunnane does all the things you think should work, keeping the ball on the ground, striking people out, showing good control. But in the majors, he seems to flounder in these 11th pitcher roles. Lefties hammer him, and he falls apart with men on base."

Here's hoping he learns to love Richmond.

 
And Chuck Smith, it is. He was promoted to Richmond to take, presumably, Glynn's spot in the rotation. He was originally scheduled to start for Greenville on Friday, but he might be moved up a day now.

Also, Lee Evans has been activated from the DL. He was placed on the list on June 11th with a fractured finger on his right hand. He's hitting .221/.317/.361 for the season, but has thrown out 42% (14 of 33) of attempted basestealers. No word yet on if this means JC Boscan goes back to the Beach. Greenville's active roster now stands at 23.

Keith Eichas and Cole Barthel magically appeared in Monday's boxscore for Orlando. It's Eichas's first appearance as a Brave. He went 0-for-2 with a walk as a PH and DH. Barthel is rehabbing a back injury. He's been on Rome's DL since April 17th.

In other rehab news, Mike Hessman will suit up for Danville for the next few days.

 
Richmond lost both their most consistent starter and their best lefty reliever to free agency today. Ryan Glynn (6-5, 2.91 ERA) and Bobby M. Jones (3.12 ERA) were both released, most likely due to provisions in their contracts.

So which likely promotion is the lesser of two evils, Chuck Smith or Billy Sylvester? If Richmond needs another starter (they have Derrick Lewis and Joe Dawley to take up the slack), then I guess the 33-year-old Smith should at least get out of AA - even though he hasn't been quite as dominating as one would think he should be. After 3 starts, Smith has a 3.38 ERA but just 12 Ks in 18.2 IP.

Sylvester's stats look much better (2.16 ERA, 20 Ks in 16.2 IP), but he's only been used in 16 games in the last 2 months since returning from his mediocre start in Richmond. Sylvester's problem is his control, and it always has been. So far this year, he's managed to walk 8.2 batters per 9 innings - a rate even worse than his not-so-good-career totals.