Just what we needed - another pitcher who walks a lot of batters. The Braves claimed Jaret Wright off waivers today from San Diego. There were at least a couple of open spots on the 40-man roster, so no one will have to be outrighted. A demotion or mystery DL-trip is required however.

MLBBies for August 28
Ryan Langerhans - 2-for-3, 2 doubles
Jose Capellan - 4 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 1 K

Langerhans is ending the season nicely. He currently has a six-game hitting streak. He's only spent a little over a month in AAA so there are obviously some sample-size issues, but here's a comparison to his early-season stats at Greenville:

Level  AVG   OBP   SLG  BB/AB  XBH%

AA    .253  .348  .387   .14   36.5

AAA   .286  .348  .487   .09   44.1

Atlanta or bust! (The last I guy I said that about was traded 5 days later. Sorry about that, Matt...)

Woohoo, a no-hitter! At least a four-inning one. Capellan has made four starts since coming off the DL (again), and the four innings is the longest they've let him go. Good for them. He should, once again, be eligible for the Rule 5 draft in December. Will teams look past his injuries and select him this time? For $50,000, it's probably worth a shot for someone to do just that.

Only three games yesterday, so this will be quick...

Donzell McDonald had hit first multi-hit game in over a month. On June 30th, McDonald was batting .272/.361/.351. Since then, he's hit just .224/.326/.292.

The much-maligned Wilson Betemit hit his 6th HR last night which gave him a hit in 9 of his last 10 games. He's hit .343/.410/.600 over that span.

Frank Castillo had a mediocre game, allowing 2 earned runs on 8 hits in 5 innings. His ERA is a much-lower-than-it-should-be 1.80. The K/BB ratio of 4.0 is nice though.

Bubba Nelson is showing that he's not quite as invincible as we were (unrealistically) hoping for. He's still doing well; he's just slightly more hittable recently. After not giving up a hit in his first six innings at AAA, he's been tagged for nine in the last 5.1 IP.

James Jurries went 2-for-4 with two doubles and ranks sixth in the league in hits and fifth in doubles.

Dan Curtis has a 1.71 ERA and a 0.76 WHIP over his last five starts.

Andy Marte is the Pelicans' only representative on the 2003 Carolina League All-Star Team.

Wes Timmons may not have a lot of power (yet), but his .401 OBP as Rome's #2 hitter sure is nice.

Ryan Ewin relieved Capellan and allowed two runs over the next three innings. That caused Ewin's ERA to skyrocket all the way to 2.45.

Former D-Brave, now Pelican, Mike Hanson was named to the Appy League's season-ending all-star team.

 
Pete Orr, who is hitting .233/.308/.314, was the only Greenville player named to the Southern League Postseason All-Star Team. He was voted in as "Best Hustler," although I don't really see a resemblance to Paul Newman.

 
Joe Dawley becomes the newest reliever in the in the Atlanta bullpen as the righthander replaces Kevin Gryboski who's been placed on the DL with a sore shoulder.

 
MLBBies for August 27
Brian McCann - 3-for-4, 2 doubles
Dan Smith - 6.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 10 K

McCann's hitting streak is up to 8 games, and he has had a hit in 14 of his last 16 games, hitting .344/.354/.516 in those games. I've talked at length about Jeff Francoeur's low walk rate, but McCann's is just about the same. Nevertheless, McCann leads the team in doubles and is second in both HRs and average, so I'm not going to complain about a low-ish (.06) BB/AB in his first full season.

Wow, what a way to close out the season. Orlando was down three runs in the championship game when Smith came on in relief and completely shut down the Pirates team for 6+ innings. That's more than twice as long as he had been asked to go before. In Orlando, Smith struck out 37.3% of the batters he faced and posted a 0.92 WHIP. And I still don't know a thing about him.

Adam LaRoche went 2-for-4 with a double and has a hit in 8 of his last 9 games. He's batting .333/.396/.524 in August and .289/.372/.488 for the season.

Do you think it's possible that Joe Dawley was upset when he didn't get the call-up yesterday after John Smoltz was placed on the DL? Regardless, he had his first horrible outing in well over a month, as he allowed 3 runs to score on 2 hits and 3 walks. Prior to that blow-up, his ERA as a reliever was 2.14.

Jung Bong, by the way, was the one who got the nod to go back to Atlanta. Bong made 3 starts for Richmond and struck out 15 batters in 11.1 IP. He's coming off a 1-hit, 6-K outing made on Sunday.

Cory Aldridge hit his 17th HR of the year.

My love for Ray Aguilar grows. He made his fifth start of the month and allowed 1 run on 6 hits in 7 innings. His ERA in those 5 starts? 0.60. His WHIP? 0.87. His K/BB? 5.0.

Who needs offense? Myrtle Beach got just 2 hits - both singles - but won last night, 1-0. In their last 6 games, the Pelicans have been outscored 15-4, but they've won 3 of those. They were shut out in all 3 losses.

Macay McBride and Manuel Acosta combined on last night's 6-hit shutout. Acosta has allowed just 1 ER in his last 8 innings.

Rome won but didn't make up any ground in the playoff race. They remain 1.5 games back with 5 to play.

Jeff Francoeur doubled and walked and is hitting .271/.364/.479 over his last 13 games.

Kyle Davies struck out 7 and allowed 1 run in 6 innings. Davies is tenth in the league with a 2.93 ERA and second in strikeouts (1546).

Sung Jung needed just 10 pitches to strike out all 3 batters he faced in the 9th inning. His ERA since June 1 is 0.96 with 52 K in 32.2 IP.

Congratulations to the GCL Braves on winning the league championship. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a playoff system set up until this year which is why I completely forgot about it. They finished with a record of 40-22 - best in the league. For comparison, Orlando won 28 games last year and 30 in 2001. In fairness, this team had many more college players than in years past, so some of their success can be attributed to their age and experience.

Steven Doetsch gets the MVP as far as I'm concerend. The 17th-rounder, who the Phillies treated so shabbily last year, hit .323/.402/.519 with 13 doubles, 9 HRs while playing in every game.

Among the pitchers, Paul Bacot, who was shut down in early August, posted a 0.95 ERA in 9 games with just 4 walks in 38 IP.

 
Things are busy around these parts. I'm swamped at work; there are some medical problems in my family that require me to be away for the weekends; plus I hear that I'm getting married in 3 weeks. Unfortunately, the blog gets pushed down on the list of priorities because of those things. That explains yesterday's absence of updates. Plus nothing really happened on Monday anyway. Well, I guess the 5 starters did combine to post a 1.16 ERA and 30 Ks in 31 IP. Other than that, nothing...nothing at all...

MLBBies for August 25
Yaron Peters - 2-for-4, 2B, HR
Matt Wright - 7 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K

Peters hit his 4th HR since returning to Rome, and all four have come in the last eight days. After Monday's game, he was hitting .308/.387/.585 during his second stint there.

I had a tough time with the pitching award. I went with Wright because mostly because of his strikeouts and control. Over his last 4 starts, he has notched 36 Ks and just 5 walks while allowing just 15 hits in 25.2 innings.

MLBBies for August 26
Steven Doetsch - 2-for-5, 2B, HR
Adam Wainwright - 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K

Doetsch hit his team-leading 9th HR (Ignore Baseball America's stats this morning. They seem to be having some problems.) He's cooled off a bit as he's only batting .276/.368/.460 this month. His season-long SLG sits at .515, and he has an on-base streak of 10 games.

I wrote last month that I wasn't completely sold on Wainwright's future - mainly because of his tiring down the stretch and the large number of innings he throws in a year. Well, here's what Wainwright has done before and after that fateful entry:

 IP    H  ER  BB   K   ERA  WHIP  K/9

95.2  97  42  29  85  3.95  1.32  8.0

48.0  34  14   7  36  2.63  0.85  6.8

Other than the K-rate (which I still think is somewhat worrisome), there's no evidence of a late-season slowdown this year. There was a stretch in June where he floundered a bit, but 2003 has been miles better stamina-wise for Wainwright. Kudos!

Mike Hessman hit a HR in his second major-league AB last night.

Chris Fussell allowed 2 runs on 4 hits in 6.1 innings (and homered!) in Richmond's 1-run loss. Bubba Nelson allowed his second AAA run of the year to score and picked up the loss. It's a very small sample size, but his K/9 has fallen from 5.8 as a starter in Greenville to 4.5 as a reliever.

Cory Aldridge hit his 15th HR of the year, the second-highest total of his career. Still, he has just 35 extra-base hits in 425 ABs.

Charles Thomas has been held without a hit just three times in the last 32 games and has hit .391/.451/.563 over that span.

Mike Hanson was promoted from Danville to Myrtle Beach after hitting .277/.329/.413 as the D-Braves' regular 2B. He had hit 11-for-29 (.379) in his last 6 games in rookie-ball.

Another shutout for Myrtle Beach. Makes you wonder how they're still averaging 3.8 runs per game for the season...

Dan Meyer lowered his Pelican ERA to 3.03 after allowing 1 earned run in 6 innings. Over his last 5 starts, he has an ERA of 2.12 and just 27 hits allowed in 29.2 IP.

Brian McCann went 2-for-5 with a double and a triple and extended his hitting streak to 7 games.

Luis Hernandez hit his first double since June 10. His SLG for the year is just .244.

Efie Peralta had 5 strikeouts in 3 innings yesterday and has struck out 23% of the batters he's faced since his promotion to Rome.

Danville finished the season with a record of 36-30 - 6.5 games out of first place.

Carlos Moreta went 3-for-4 - his fourth straight multi-hit game.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia homered for the third time this month. He's batting .310/.403/.603 in August.

On Monday, Jo Jo Reyes tossed 6 shutout innings, allowing 8 hits and 1 walk. He lowered his ERA to 2.26. And he's only had one poor start - 6 runs in 2.2 IP. Take that one out (I can do that; I'm a professional) and his ERA drops to 1.29. He's also struck out close to 30% of the batters he's faced.

Yesterday, Jake Stevens went a season-high 8 innings and gave up 1 run on 5 hits while striking out 5 batters. In August, his ERA is 1.35, and his WHIP is 0.86.

Jose Ascanio pitched a perfect 9th yesterday - his first appearance since July 21.

One more win against the Pirates today, and Orlando will be the GCL Champs.

Two leagues have announced their final All-Star selections. Johnny Estrada was the only representative for Richmond on the International League team. And Brian McCann and Jeff Francoeur were named to the Sally League team.

 
Baseball America's Josh Boyd talked with Dayton Moore about Jeff Francoeur's progress this year.

 
The Braves signed RHP Chris Vines, their 5th-round selection in this year's draft on Sunday - another major coup for Scouting Director Roy Clark. Here's what I wrote about Vines in June:

He's 6'5" and just 187 pounds and increased the speed on his fastball around 87 mph to 92 mph in his senior year. He also has an excellent curveball. He was ranked by Baseball America as the #2 prospect in Alabama (#113 overall) and has a committment to the University of Florida.

This means the Braves signed their top 14 (!!) picks and 23 of their first 29 selections. Wow!

Here's a update on the signings (in bold) and rejections (striked through):
updated 8/26
1s Luis Atilano, RHP
1s Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
2 Jo Jo Reyes, LHP
2 Paul Bacot, RHP
3 Jacob Stevens, LHP
3 Matt Harrison, LHP
4 Jaime Romak, 3B
5 Chris Vines, RHP
6 Asher Demme, RHP
7 Ryan Basner, RHP
8 Sean White, RHP
9 Adam Stanley, LHP
10 Brad Nelson, RHP
11 Glenn Tucker, RHP
12 Casey Spanish, OF
13 Mark Jurich, OF
14 Steve Doetsch, OF
15 Ben Thomas, 3B
16 Cole Armstrong, C
17 Keith Eichas, 1B
18 Keith Weiser, LHP
19 Andy Barden, C
20 Kyle Bakker, LHP
21 Brooks Brown, OF
22 Jacob Blakeney, RHP
23 Jaime Hemingway, OF
24 Brandon Jones, OF
25 Quentin Berry, OF
26 C.J. Bressoud, C

 
I'm back. I'd like to say that this was the last time I'd miss a group of games. But since I'll be away next weekend, the final one of season, I guess I can't. It also doesn't look like any of the teams are going to the playoffs, so I'll get started on a series of season-ending recaps at some point next week.

MLBBies for August 22
Jesse Garcia - 4-for-5, HR
Kyle Davies - 6 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

MLBBies for August 23
Adam LaRoche - 2-for-4, HR, BB
Matt Merricks - 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K

MLBBies for August 24
Martin Prado - 3-for-3, 2 triples
Luis Atilano - 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K

It's either a statistical oddity or a sign of a lot of speed, but Prado hit 3 triples this past week and no doubles. In fact, for the season, he has 6 three-baggers to just 2 doubles. Weird. His speed doesn't seem to translate to the basepaths too much though as he is just 9-for-18 in SB attempts. Prado's batting .560/.621/.800 over his current 6-game hitting streak.

I'm sure there were plenty of people questioning the Braves' draft strategy after Atilano, their first-overall selection, started the year with a 7.65 ERA through his first 6 games. Since then, he's posted a 1.59 ERA in his last 6 games with a 0.94 WHIP. For the season, he's walked just 7 batters in 54 innings for a lovely 1.2 BB/9.

Richmond went 2-1 over the weekend, despite the presence of Roberto Hernandez on the team. Hernandez allowed 6 runs in 1.1 IP on Friday. Let's see, the purpose of rehab for a pitcher is to get some innings under his belt to find out if he is healthy to re-join the major-league team. Well, since Roberto not only beaned a player, but then told everyone in the world that he did it on purpose, he'll mostly likely be spending the few days on the suspended list. With his 16.20 ERA, neither Richmond nor Atlanta will probably miss him.

Hernandez's foolhardy strategy came as a result of Johnny Estrada's plunking two days earlier. Estrada's done for the rest of Richmond's season, but he presumably still has a chance to get a few ABs for Atlanta in September and maybe even October. He'll most likely finish second for the batting title in the International League, and he concluded his Richmond season hitting .327/.389/.486.

Looks like I also a missed a brouhaha over at the FanHome board this weekend regarding the interpretation of "out for the season." Best I can tell, a regular contributor was banned because of some possibly hasty reporting on the Estrada situation. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Either way, it would be nice if I could get those banning rights over at the ESPN board, my usual hangout. There's no way would I abuse that power...

I don't think Jesse Garcia endeared himself to the organization this weekend when he blamed his being in Richmond all year on their roster goof this spring. He also said that he was now playing "for the other 29 teams." I hope every team that is looking for a 30-year-old slap-hitter who won't walk and can't hit for any kind of power is taking note of his availability for next year.

On to actual prospects... Adam LaRoche homered in back-to-back games and now has 20 HRs for the season. He's batting .291/.359/.460 since his promotion to Richmond and .325/.386/.507 in August.

Jung Bong was extremely impressive in his third start for Richmond. He struck out 6 and allowed a lone hit in 5.1 innings. That gives him 15 Ks in 11.1 IP.

I think Mike Romano probably already his bags packed for Atlanta and is just waiting on the ok before booking the flight. I say this not only because he has been very successful since his signing (5 hits and 3 walks in 9.1 scorless innings), but also because of the frequency that Romano is being trotted out there. He's appeared 5 times in the 8 days he's been with the club. Add his usage to his numbers, and you get a very clear tryout for the Atlanta bullpen.

Ray Aguilar gave up 7 runs, but just 1 earned in Greenville's high-scoring win on Saturday. (Aguilar contributed to the run-fest with a 2-run HR.) That was the first earned run allowed by the converted reliever in the last 30 innings.

Dan Curtis has a 2.30 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP over his last 7 starts.

Billy Sylvester pitched 2 innings for the first time this season and lowered his ERA to 1.47. More importantly, he's walked just 2 batters in his last 16 innings.

Eek, Myrtle Beach managed just one run in their three games this weekend and batted .156/.242/.171. Carlos Duran had the only extra-base hit, a double on Friday.

Matt Merricks and Dave Watkins combined on a shutout on Saturday for the Pelicans' lone win. Merricks is 1-6 as a starter for Myrtle Beach, but he has a 3.00 ERA.

Jeff Francoeur has a hit in 9 of his last 10 games and is batting .297/.381/.460 with 4 walks over that span.

Kyle Davies has an ERA of 1.82 over his last 5 starts.

Jose Capellan made his third start since returning from the DL and allowed one run in 4 innings.

Gonzalo Lopez seems to be persona-non-grata to the Braves.

Danny Ruiz was activated from the DL today, and Mike Mueller was re-disabled (my word) after pitching just 7 innings this month.

Sean White gave up an unearned run in 5 innings yesterday for Danville. His ERA over his last 7 games is just 1.06.

Carl Loadenthal and Martin Prado combined to go 10-for-13 as the top two batters in the Danville lineup this weekend. Carlos Moreta went 5-for-8 with a HR. And Jarrod Saltalamacchia walked four times in two games.

Matt McClendon made another rehab start on Friday, and walked 3 batters in 1.1 innings. I guess the good news is that he didn't allow a hit, but the number of walks is really the only thing to look for in his appearances.

Jake Stevens allowed no runs and just 2 hits in 3.2 innings of relief. He also struck out 4 and walked none. He lowered his ERA to 2.44, although it's just 1.65 if you overlook his first outing of the year.

 
Out of town for another weekend. Back on Monday...

 
MLBBies for August 21
Andy Marte - 2-for-4, HR, BB
Blaine Boyer - 5.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K

Marte has hit .331/.415/.559 over the last 40 games and has a shot at finishing the year above .300. Take a look at the league leaderboard, and you'll see his name near the top of almost every category. And we thought last year's .281/.339/.492 was good...

Boyer's last seven starts look like this: 38.2 IP, 23 H, 7 R, 3 ER, 18 BB, 30 K... 0.70 ERA, 1.06 WHIP.

Richmond got just 2 hits last night and lost their third straight game. Over those three games, the team has hit .197/.310/.230 with just 3 extra-base hits.

Frank Castillo shutout Columbus for 6 innings in his second start with the Braves.

Jaime Emiliano had a 2.05 ERA on July 11. In the 14 games since then, it's 10.19 - including a current streak of 7 straight games where he has allowed a run.

Ramon Castro hit his 4th HR of the year. He's hit very well in August - .314/.397/.490 - and raised his overall numbers at Greenville to a respectable .277/.370/.380.

I'll keep posting Kelly Johnson's numbers until he slows down. Since his return from his DL stint, he's hit .381/.460/.619 in 13 games, including 2 singles last night.

The Adam Wainwright-Edwin Jackson duel didn't go as planned. Mother Nature interfered, and the game was halted for awhile in the 3rd inning. Wainwright had already given up 2 runs in 2 innings and was credited with the loss.

Derrick Lewis's Greenville debut was, well, much like his appearances at Richmond. He allowed 5 runs on 4 hits and a walk in 2.1 IP.

Even Bryon Jeffcoat got to pitch after all the relievers were tired from the marathon game the night before. He walked two, hit a batter and allowed a run in the 8th inning.

Brayan Pena, Tony Pena and Scott Thorman all had 3 hits in Myrtle Beach's win.

Dan Meyer tossed 7 shutout innings, walked 4 and struck out 3. He has a 2.19 ERA in his last 4 starts.

Wes Timmons has a hit in 19 of his last 24 games and has batted .337/.388/.472 over that time.

Mike Hanson had 3 hits for Danville and is now 8-for-17 in the last 4 games.

Orlando tallied 15 hits in their 15-inning game yesertday, including 3 each by Carl Loadenthal, Martin Prado and Keith Eichas. Eichas has had just one extra-base hit in his last 65 ABs.

Matt Harrison struck out 5 batters in 4 innings but also allowed 3 runs.

Jose Santiago pitched 4 scoreless innings of relief and lowered his ERA to 1.52. He now hasn't allowed a run in his last 15.2 IP.

 
A couple of things from Baseball America:

The Arizona Fall League rosters have been announced. The Mesa Solar Sox will have Pat Kelly managing Brett Evert, Kevin Barry, Alec Zumwalt, Kelly Johnson, Richard Lewis and Adam Stern. Play starts Sept. 30.

Last year's AFL provided a good jumping-off point for Jung Bong, Horacio Ramirez, Adam LaRoche and Ryan Langerhans.

And Director of Player Personnel Dayton Moore gave his views on Adam Wainwright in yesterday's Daily Dish, including this:

"He'll start [an intensive strength training and conditioning] program this winter and it should take his development to another altitude."

 
MLBBies for August 20
Angelo Burrows - 3-for-5, 2B, 3B
Matt Wright - 7 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 12 K

So Burrows hits .204/.255/.367 in 22 games for Rome, gets promoted, and is now batting .280/.314/.370 at Myrtle Beach. How does that work? I'm going with the trusty "small sample size" theory. His walk rate is better than in the past, but it's still pretty bad. And with little power and trouble making good contact, his award for Best Outfield Arm (and today's MLBBie, of course) might make up the highlights of his career.

Well, when Matt Wright has it going, he can really put up the Ks. Since his demotion to Rome, he's racked up 86 strikeouts in just 68 innings, a K/9 of 11.4. To put it another way, he's striking out a third of all the batters that he faces. That's phenomenal. He's also dropped his walk rate over his last 3 starts, but from this viewpoint, it's hard to tell if that's going to be permament. Oh and one more factoid: he's allowing fewer than 4 hits per start.

Roberto Hernandez made a rehab appearance last night for Richmond, and it looked eerily like his recent stints in Atlanta: 1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 2 K. Maybe they should've let him rehab in Rome. No wait, Rome is in a playoff hunt. That wouldn't have helped.

Hernandez's outing combined with some bad offense, wasted some nice pitching by Chris Fussell. Fussell allowed just 2 hits and 4 walks in 8 innings. He's changed his delivery to something Guy Hansen is calling the Laredo, because "Laredo is the farthest city down in Texas before you get into Mexico." Someone should buy Hansen an atlas.

Bubba Nelson also gave up some hits for the very first time since he was promoted. He's now allowed 5 baserunners and no runs in 7 innings.

On the same night that Javy Lopez left the game against the Giants after fouling a ball of his leg, Johnny Estrada was hit on the hand by a pitch and left the park for x-rays. He hasn't been placed on the DL so far, so hopefully, it's not too bad.

Derrick Lewis has been demoted to Greenville, which had a open spot on their roster. Lewis had a 7.15 ERA for Richmond in 36 games. That's including 5 starts where his ERA ballooned to 16.07 and he posted a 2.57 WHIP. Eek!

Frank Castillo is maikng start #2 for Richmond tonight.

Chris Waters struck out 6 batters and didn't walk anyone, but he also allowed 4 runs on 7 hits in 7 innings. That gave him his 5th consecutive loss, and 8 out of his last 9 decisions have been L's. His ERA in those losses has been 5.27.

There's a doozy of a matchup tonight as Adam Wainwright goes against the Dodgers' best pitching prospect, Edwin Jackson. Jackson leads the league in strikeouts with 146 in 140.1 IP.

The MLBBie runner-up was 2B sleeper, Aaron Herr. Herr went 3-for-5 with a HR and is batting .435 with 2 HRs over his current 6-game hitting streak.

Matt Coenen did his best "Matt Coenen in April" impression and allowed 1 run on 4 hits in 6 innings. But he still let us know that was really just "Matt Coenen in June & July" in disguise by walking 6 batters.

Jeff Francouer went 3-for-4 with 2 doubles and extended his hitting streak to 6 games. (.381/.458/.619 in case you wanted to know...)

Brian McCann has been stuck on 12 HRs for 32 games now. He's only hitting .246/.278/.341 over that span. But he's a catcher; give him a break.

Speaking of catchers, C.J. Bressoud has been working out with the Rome team this week. Don't get excited about the 26th-rounder joining the team just yet (or even next year). I'm sure it's more of just a proximity thing since he's from an Atlanta suburb.

Mike Mueller made a rare appearance last night. He's pitched just 5 innings this month.

Ben Thomas has gone 7 for his last 13 with multiple hits in his last 3 games.

Danny Collins allowed 4 runs on 8 hits in 5 innings yesterday. His strikeouts are way down in the last few starts. After whiffing 27 in his first 33 innings, he's struck out just 11 in his last 23.2 IP.

Brad Nelson always gives up runs in bunches. He's allowed a run to score in 9 games this year, and in 8 of those, it's been multiple runs. Perhaps, it's as easy as not letting him go 2 innings or more. In the 13 games when he has pitched less than 2 innings, he has an ERA of just 1.35. In games where he goes longer, it's 5.40.

Jo Jo Reyes bounced back from his poor start on the 15th and allowed 1 run in 6 innings. He's held opponents to a .205 average in 11 games.

 
Aaron Herr is listed as a "sleeper" in Baseball America's top 2B prospects. [Subscribers only]

Herr has a career OBP of .310.

Bill Shanks is reporting that John Ennis was claimed off waivers by Detroit. The Braves could've pulled him back but chose not to. Ennis posted a 5.56 ERA in 28 games for Richmond, was demoted, and made one good start in Greenville. His peripheral numbers were all similar to last year (although that wasn't a particularly great year anyway), except for his hits allowed which rose dramatically.

YEAR  ERA   WHIP   H/9  K/9  BB/9

2000  2.55  1.04   7.0  9.6  2.3

2001  3.58  1.13   7.2  9.4  2.9

2002  4.18  1.30   7.9  6.3  3.8

2003  5.45  1.58  10.8  6.8  3.4

Ennis was a 14th-round selection by the Braves in the 1998 draft. The Braves' 40-man roster now stands at 38.

 
This is more for the historical record than anything else, but here are your MLBBie winners for the last several days that I was away:

MLBBies for August 15
Tony Pena - 3-for-3, BB
Danny Collins - 6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K

MLBBies for August 16
Kelly Johnson - 3-for-4, 2 doubles, HR
Adam Wainwright - 7 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K

MLBBies for August 17
Carlos Duran - 2-for-3, 3B
Macay McBride - 7 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K

MLBBies for August 18
Jarrod Saltalamacchia - 2-for-4, HR, BB
Ray Aguilar - 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K

And today's...

MLBBies for August 19
Scott Thorman - 1-for-2, HR, 3 BB
Anthony Lerew - 5.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K

It's easy to forget that this is just Thorman's second full year of pro baseball. After missing all of 2001, Thorman hit .294/.367/.489 for Macon last year with a decent .11 BB/AB. This year, the average is down (.246), but the power, walk rate and strikeout rate are all about the same. And surprisingly he's actually showing more power at home in Myrtle Beach than on the road. Eight of his 12 HRs have come at Coastal Federal Field.

Lerew tossed yet another gem and lowered his ERA to 2.41 - tied for second-best in the league. Over his last 4 starts, he has a 1.52 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP. In what is I'm sure just a fluke of the scheduling, Lerew has started 15 games on the road and just 8 at home. Fortunately, he's proficient no matter where he plays. His has a 2.09 ERA in Rome and a 2.59 ERA on the road.

Ryan Langerhans went 2-for-4 last night and raised his AAA numbers to .302/.378/.523. I still believe the recent power is just a bit of a fluke. He's virtually tripled his HR rate since being promoted from Greenville. He now has accumulated 30 doubles and 10 HRs for the season which looks like it fits in with the rest of his career numbers. One more strikeout, and he'll set a career-high.

Wilson Betemit broke a 4-game, 0-for-13 streak by tripling in 2 runs. It was his 10th triple of the year (easily the best total in his career) and put him 2nd in the league in three-baggers.

Mike Romano has been a busy man. He's appeared in 3 of the last 4 games and has already totaled 5.2 IP in relief. He has yet to allow a run, although he was part of last night's walk-a-thon.

Buddy Hernandez allowed a run for the 3rd straight game. He's worked 67 innings so far this year - the most of his career. It's probably not a coincidence that his ERA in August is 6.35.

Greenville lost in the 15th inning last night with Kevin Barry, the 6th of the 7 pitchers used, picking up the loss.

Kelly Johnson walked 4 times in the marathon and is hitting .412/.500/.706 with 7 doubles in the 11 games since he came off the DL.

Tony Pena took his 23rd walk of the year yesterday and now has a robust (for him) BB/AB of .06. Sure, it doesn't sound that great, but since he came into the year with a rate of .03, his current propensity to take a walk is downright Bondsian.

Kyle Roat went 3-for-5 for Myrtle Beach which matched his hit total of his first 8 games with the team. He raised his batting average 90 points in one night.

Adam Stern is batting just .178/.265/.205 since coming off the DL earlier this month.

Yaron Peters went deep in consecutive games for Rome and now has 10 HR for the season. He's batting .357/.417/.595 since his return to low-A.

Willie James, who batted .237 in fill-in duty for Rome earlier in the year, went 3-for-5 to raise his average to just .172 for Danville.

Dominique Partridge hit his 3rd HR in a week. His SLG has gone from .291 to .351 in that time.

Justin Saltalamacchia, who I neglected to mention yesterday has been promoted to Danville, has started out 2-for-10 with his new team.

Over his last 5 starts, Sean White is 3-1 with a 1.33 ERA and has struck out 23 batters in 27 innings.

On the other end of the spectrum, Cory Blackmon has given up as many runs (7) in his last 6 innings as he did in his first 25 innings.

Since being no-hit in the first game of a doubleheader last Friday, Orlando has hit .308/.359/.466 as a team in their last 4 games.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia has a hit in 6 of his last 7 games and is batting .478/.520/.870 over that span.

Luis Atilano has an ERA of 2.00 and a WHIP of 1.04 over his last 5 starts. He struck out 7 yesterday, a season-high.

Jose Santiago seems to pitch every day now. And for good reason. He hasn't allowed a run - and just 3 hits - in over a month, a span of 11.2 innings.

 
I've got a page full of transactions that occured while I was gone. I'll go through those now, and the usual minutae will start up again hopefully tomorrow. Since I was out of town, my spreadsheet of stats is woefully out-of-date, but I'll get that current tonight.

Ok, let's start from the top. Atlanta placed Julio Franco on the DL yesterday after a freak weight-room accident required four stitches on the tip of his left middle finger. The Braves called up 1B/3B/OF Mike Hessman to take his spot. Julio has only started 3 games this month, so Hessman will probably spend most of his time as a pinch-hitter. The Richmond website overwrites each day's media notes, and CNNSI doesn't have the R-Braves' splits, so I'm not sure how Hessman does against lefties vs. righties.

When was the last time a player was replaced by someone 20 years younger? Maybe it would stranger the other way...

For Richmond, Mike Hubbard was activated from the DL, John Ennis was demoted to Greenville, Rontrez Johnson was suspended by the team for 3 games, and Frank Castillo and Mike Romano were both signed to minor-league deals.

Castillo's a 34-year-old right-handed starter who spent most of his career with the Cubs and Red Sox. He was released by the Red Sox at the end of last year and has been playing with the mighty Sacramento RiverCats, Oakland's AAA affiliate. Castillo was released by Oakland on July 30 after posting a 4.13 ERA in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. His main problem (and stop me if you've heard this before about other Braves' acquisitions...) is allowing too many baserunners. His WHIP was 1.44, and he allowed 12 HRs in just 96 innings. I doubt many of those were solo shots. He'll take Chris Fussell's spot in the rotation.

Romano is a former Blue Jay who had a 3 game cup-o'-coffee with Toronto in 1999. He's 31, a former 3rd-rounder in the '93 draft, and was signed out of the Mexican League. With Tabasco, he put up a 2.72 ERA and 1.33 WHIP as a reliever.

Greenville lost Greg Miller on the 16th when Ennis came down, only to get get him back yesterday when Matt Blank was released. Blank pitched 2 hitless innings for Greenville. Sorry, not good enough...

Brian Almeida was placed on Rome's DL with shoulder tendinitis. The 9 walks in 9.2 innings probably didn't help either. That move also allowed Ricardo Rodriguez to be activated.

And Robert Mason is officially on a rehab stint. It's kinda hard to tell the difference when you're already assigned to Orlando. Guess he'll be headed to Danville if his mystery ailment is ok.

 
I've got to head out of town for a few days to take care of some family business. No, it has nothing to do with the mob. The next blog entry will probably appear on Tuesday...

 
David Cameron at Baseball Prospectus has taken a detailed look at Jeff Francoeur. His comments will sound familiar to regular readers, most notably that Francoeur's primary weakness is his low number of walks. But in the last two months, the 19-year-old has already doubled his first-half output. And that, my friends, is the definition of progress.

With only a handful of games left to play this year, I'd say Francoeur has met or exceeded most expectations for his first full season. The interesting test will come next year at Myrtle Beach when he'll have to deal with a more difficult home park and more advanced pitchers who will go after his weaknesses.

 
Andy LaRoche, Adam's younger brother, signed with the Dodgers today after being drafted in the 39th round. According to Baseball America, his bonus was "equal to supplemental first-round money." Wow.

 
MLBBies for August 13
Dominique Partridge - 2-for-4, 2B, HR
Ray Aguilar - 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 6 K

Partridge was taken in the 28th round by the Braves in 2001 out of a GA high school. He spent two years with Orlando and posted... I guess you could call them 'non-impressive numbers' - .250/.330/.321. He began this year at Danville and hit even worse over the first 2 months - .192/.246/.248. But after 400 career ABs, things seems to be clicking for him now. He has hit .341/.386/.477 in August with 2 doubles, a triple and a HR.

I've mentioned Aguilar enough times over the last week or two, so here's just what he's done since the beginning of June which covers 17 relief appearances and 2 starts:

45 IP, 30 H, 8 ER, 8 BB, 46 K. Or for the math-impaired: 1.60 ERA, 0.84 WHIP, 9.2 K/9, 5.8 K/BB.

MLBBies for August 14
Yaron Peters - 2-for-4, 2 2B
Matt Wright - 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K

Peters' first home game with Rome since the middle of June was a good one. He's now 8-for-30 (.267) since his demotion last Friday. Which sure beats the 19 hits he had in 112 ABs with Myrtle Beach.

Wright had plenty of control (or some willing hitters) last night as he struck out 9 batters and walked just one. He has an excellent 10.9 K/9 with Rome - a decent increase from his 8.6 K/9 in 13 starts at Myrtle Beach. The walk rate, which is what presumably got him demoted, is down as well - from 6.2 to 4.0.

Hitting Streaks
Gregor Blanco - 12 games

My lackadaisical attitude (actually my busy schedule) forced me to miss commenting on the end of Charles Thomas's 18-game hitting streak. He hit .408/.471/.645 with 10 doubles, 4 triples and 7 multi-hit games.

Adam LaRoche's 11-game streak ended last night. He batted an even more robust .425/.489/.625.

Mike Hessman had a 10-game streak that included 5 HRs.

Ryan Langerhans had 3 of Richmond's 4 hits last night. Even if those three would've been HRs, it still wouldn't have helped Jung Bong's AAA debut. Bong surrendered 3 runs in the first frame and 4 overall in just 3 innings of work. Chris Fussell, who may move to the bullpen to allow Bong to start, allowed 7 hits in 4 innings but just 1 ER.

On Wednesday, Travis Wilson walked for just the 8th time this year. I'm afraid that's going to put him out of the running for "worst walk rate of his career." He had a .018 in 2001. Currently, he sits at .023.

Greenville got swept last night in a doubleheader after being on the other end just the day before. Ray Aguilar and Dan Curtis led the way on Wenesday with a combined line of: 13 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 10 K. Things didn't go quite as well for starters Bryan Digby and Brett Evert last night: 7 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 4 BB, 7 K. This was Digby's 1st start of the year.

Matt Blank threw a scoreless inning in his Braves' debut on Wednesday.

Kelly Johnson is 8-for-18 since his return from the DL with a nice even .500 OBP.

Gregor Blanco has a .481 OBP over his current 12-game hitting streak.

With yesterday's outing, Zach Miner has now had back-to-back poor starts, allowing 15 hits and 12 runs in 10.2 IP.

In addition to Peters's MLBBie-winning performance, Onil Joseph, Wes Timmons, Jon Schuerholz all had 2 hits each, and Jeff Francoeur tripled and walked. Francoeur has now walked 9 times in his last 61 ABs.

I also missed commenting on Anthony Lerew's fine outing on Wednesday: 6 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 6 K. He now has a 1.47 ERA in August.

Jose Capellan is back off the DL.

With his HR last night, Danville's Jaime Hemingway has a hit in 9 of his last 10 games.

Sean White allowed an unearned run in 5 innings, and that dropped his ERA to 3.70 overall and 1.17 in his last 5 games.

Orlando was rained out for, I believe, just the third time this year. I predicted 12 rainouts at the beginning of the year, so I guess I should put my meterological career on hold.

 
Bill Shanks is reporting that C.J. Bressoud, the Braves' 26th-round selection, has signed. He had committed to play at Alabama whose classes begin next week. That means we should also hear something soon out of 5th-rounder Chris Vines who's also committed to the UA baseball team.

Shanks is also now saying that Kyle Bakker has signed as well. That one's a bit of a surprise, but it's good to hear. Bakker's stock fell after a mediocre '02 season at Georgia Tech, and the Braves selected him in the 20th round.

I hope to get yesterday's MLBBies and notes taken care of tonight, but if not, I'll make it up to you tomorrow.

 
Ugh. Well, the Reds' interim GM has confirmed that it is Matt Belisle who will be sent to Cincinnati for Kent Mercker. Why even go the PTBNL route if the identity of the player is going to be known two days later? Belisle was on the 40-man roster, so if the trade had simply been announced as Mercker-for-Belisle, then Cory Aldridge would not be in baseball purgatory right now waiting to see if he'll be claimed off waivers.

According to the Times-Dispatch, John Ennis will be sent back to Greenville upon Jung Bong's assigment to Richmond. Although as I pointed out yesterday, Richmond doesn't need to demote anyone since rosters expanded back to 24 on Sunday. If Belisle and Ennis both leave, then they'll actually be down to 22. (????)

If the Braves need someone to handle the intricacies of the transactions, I'm available...

 
Jung Bong has been optioned to Richmond to open a spot for Kent Mercker. It will be Bong's first appearance in the minors this year and his first go-around at AAA. Roberto Hernandez has been creatively placed on the DL to make room for Trey Hodges's return. Richmond now has a full, 24-man roster. As a side note, Greenville still only has 23 active players.

 
Would John Schuerholz really give away Matt Belisle for 2 months of Kent Mercker??? So says Baseball America. Yeesh. Just think what they could've gotten if they had an actual GM...

MLBBies for August 12
Adam LaRoche - 2-for-3, HR, BB
Andy Pratt - 7.1 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 0 K

I will toot my own horn a bit today as I subtly remind everyone that I placed LaRoche 7th on my 2003 prospect list. No one else had him in their top 10. Now I'll be the first to say that prospect lists are usually just guesses, but they're hopefully based on some facts. And I believe my inclusion of LaRoche was because I weighted OBP much higher than many others did. It's just so rare to see a player in the Atlanta system who's on base more than 35% of the time that I was giddy enough to place him that high. Here are LaRoche's year-by-year stats:

YEAR   AB    H  2B 3B  HR  BB    K   AVG   OBP   SLG

2001  471  118  31  0   7  30  108  .251  .305  .361

2002  423  134  26  0  13  46   75  .317  .389  .470

2003  411  120  27  1  18  55   98  .292  .376  .494

With about 20 games to go, LaRcohe has an excellent shot at finishing the year with 30 doubles and 20 HRs.

Pratt's another one that I had ranked pretty high, but I never expected him to have a strikeout rate as high as he currently does. His 9.5 K/9 would be the highest of his career since his days in the Sally League in 1999. He's also cut back on his walks as of late. He had a 4.9 BB/9 through his first 18 games, but it's dropped to 3.3 in the last 7 games.

I bet the Rangers would sure love to have him back...

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 17 games
Adam LaRoche - 10 games
Mike Hessman - 10 games
Jesse Garcia - 8 games

Ryan Langerhans hit his 4th HR in 18 games with Richmond. He had just 6 HRs in 94 games at AA.

Johnny Estrada broke out of his doubles drought. Before last night's, he had gone 13 games without an extra-base hit of any kind - easily his longest streak of the year.

Joe Dawley picked up save #20 for Richmond. He's allowed just 4 hits in his last 11 outings.

Well, Myrtle Beach managed a few more hits this time around, but they still lost their 16th game in their last 18 tries. I had a faithful reader who gets to see a lot of the team send me an e-mail with a laundry list of problems with the team. It ran the gamut from terrible baserunning and no plate discipline to misjudging fly balls and a general lack of concentration. For Pelicans' fans, it's probably not a lot of fun to watch these guys as a whole, but there are definitely some bright spots: Andy Marte's excellent all-around year, Gregor Blanco's .366 OBP, Scott Thorman's second-half resurgence, along with the pitching trio of Macay McBride, Dan Meyer, and Zach Miner.

McBride allowed 3 runs on 10 hits and a walk in 7 innings yesterday.

Luis Hernandez hit a HR last night which should've been big enough news to give him the MLBBie... except the voters are biased against weak-hitting defensive specialists. Hernandez's 4th extra-base hit in 277 ABs raised his SLG to .238.

The Rome News-Tribune did a nice piece on Onil Joseph today. It's kinda funny that it just happened to come on the heels of an 0-for-5, 4 K game for 'OJ.'

Jose Capellan pitched for the first time in two weeks, but it was Ryan Ewin who continued to impress. Ewin went 5.1 innings and has allowed just one run in his last 23.1 IP.

Charlie Morton had his first walkless game of the year. He gave up 3 runs on 7 hits and took the loss for Danville.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia has a hit in 8 of his last 10 games and has hit .406/.525/.625 over that span.

Manuel Bale, whose name really confuses the scorekeepers at Orlando, pitched 3.1 innings of relief yesterday and lowered his ERA to 3.38.

 
The Braves signed Kent Mercker today to try and help out the bullpen. He's at least got a better WHIP than Kevin Gryboski, Jung Bong and Roberto Hernandez although that's not saying much. Mercker's cost? A player to be named later. And someone's job in Atlanta.

Cory Aldridge has been designated for assignment which is a fancy way of saying they don't know what to do with him yet. This will remove him Greenville's roster - and from the 40-man roster so that Mercker can be added. Now, the Braves basically have 10 days to try to trade Aldridge or place him on waivers. His 2003 stats (.236/.303/.393) look eerily like his career numbers.

MLBBies for August 11
Steve Doetsch - 1-for-3, HR
Dan Meyer - 7 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

No one had a really outstanding performance last night, but these two will have to do. Doetsch now has the sole lead in HRs for the GCL and is second in SLG. He's had a hit in 10 of his last 11 games and batted .367/.426/.694 over that span.

Meyer's just 2-4 with Myrtle Beach, but he's got a 3.52 ERA and has held opposing batters to a .281 OBP. His MLBBie gives him the league among pitchers.

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 17 games
Adam LaRoche - 9 games
Mike Hessman - 9 games
Jesse Garcia - 7 games

It was a bad night for hitting streaks, as Carl Loadenthal, Andy Marte and Ramon Castro all ended theirs.

Kelly Johnson has picked up right where he left off in Orlando. He collected two more hits and is 4-for-7 since his return from the DL.

Adam Wainwright pitched 6 innings and gave up 3 runs on 7 hits. He also struck out 3 batters. He made not have the Ks working, but he also didn't walk anyone for the first time in 9 starts. His current 2.3 BB/9 would be a career-best. His 3.4 K/BB is his highest since his initial 2000 season.

Those mighty Pelicans were one-hit last night, although they did total 4 whopping baserunners. Andy Marte's on-base streak came to a crashing halt at 31 games. He did make the 'Others to Watch' portion of the Prospect Hot Sheet though.

Yaron Peters has gone 4-for-18 with a couple of walks since his return to Rome.

Kyle Davies struck out 5 batters in 6 innings and remains in second place in the league in Ks. He's up to 126 IP, which is of course many more than he's accustomed to.

Matt Esquivel homered again. That makes 6 in the last 2 weeks and 10 overall, good for second on the Appy League.

Seven of the 12 outs that Roberto Nieves recorded yesterday were on strikeouts. That gives him 43 in 30 innings, a phenomenal rate of 12.9 K/9.

Dan Smith is back vexing GCL hitters. He tossed 3 scoreless innings yesterday and allowed one hit and one walk.

 
Greenville has activated Matt Blank from the DL. He was signed on August 3 and has been on the DL with a strained right forearm. It looks like he'll be used out of the bullpen, although one of the starters in their doubleheader tonight has not been announced. Hmm...

 
I took yesterday off from the blog - obviously. I got distracted by S.W.A.T. (oops, not that one) and Richard Russo.

MLBBies for August 9
Ramon Castro - 3-for-5, 2B, HR
Sean White - 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K

MLBBies for August 10
Aaron Herr - 3-for-5, 2B, HR
Sam McConnell - 6.1 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K

Ramon Castro has been hitting much better of late, batting .462/.517/.654 over his last 7 games. It's clear, at least to me, that he does much better when he's starting (.301/.390/.399) than as a PH (.154/.214/.154).

Sean White has had three excellent starts in a row (1.69 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 9.6 K/9) to lower his cumulative ERA as a starter and reliever to 4.08.

Here's a new one: Aaron Herr has a 14-game streak of going hitless in exactly every other game. He has somehow managed to balance an 11-for-30 in every other game with a 0-for-24.

Sam McConnell has won 6 of his last 7 starts while posting an ERA of 2.85. He has 36 Ks and just 5 walks in those 41 innings.

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 16 games
Carl Loadenthal - 9 games
Adam LaRoche - 9 games
Mike Hessman - 9 games
Andy Marte - 7 games
Ramon Castro - 7 games
Jesse Garcia - 7 games

Johnny Estrada was 4 for his last 23 before going 3-for-5 yesterday.

Adam LaRoche is hitting .394/.447/.515 in his current 9-game streak.

Joe Dawley has struck out 23 batters in his last 13 innings.

Bubba Nelson worked 1.2 hitless innings in his second appearance for Richmond.

Welcome back, Kelly Johnson! He went 2-for-3 in his first game back with Greenville after going on the DL in early July. He hit .385/.467/.615 in his 6 games of rehab.

Chris Waters allowed 2 runs on 3 walks and 6 hits in 5 innings yesterday. He also failed to give up a HR for the first time in 6 starts. His ERA when he does allow a HR is 6.43.

Billy Sylvester, Control Pitcher?!?! After striking out the side yesterday, he has 15 Ks and just 1 walk in his last 10 innings.

The last time that Andy Marte did not reach base in a game was the first half of a July 4th doubleheader. He's hitting .351/.435/.613 with 7 HRs over those 31 games. He better be in today's edition of Josh Boyd's Prospect Hot Sheet, or I will put Mr. Boyd on my non-bolded names list. That'll show him...

While I'm "threatening" things, maybe Scott Thorman could get a mention too. He's hit .480/.500/.760 over his 6-game hitting streak.

The Matt Coenen slide continues. He allowed 6 runs in 5 innings and has a 5.28 ERA since the beginning of June.

Wes Timmons homered for the first time in almost a month and finished the day going 3-for-4.

Onil Joseph has a hit in 25 of his last 28 games and has a .438 OBP over that span.

The Savannah Morning News had a nice profile of Jon Schuerholz yesterday on what it's like to be the GM's son. Since May 3, Schuerholz has hit .268 with a .361 OBP. Yet some folks are still biased against him because of his name.

Blaine Boyer has four straight scoreless starts covering 21 innings.

According to the transaction wire, Dan Smith has been sent back to Orlando.

Matt Esquivel had an 8-game hitting streak snapped yesterday. During that run, he had 4 HRs. And 13 strikeouts.

Danny Collins lowered his ERA to 3.20 with a 5-inning, 1-run start yesterday.

 
MLBBies for August 8
Andy Marte - 2-for-4, 2 HRs, BB
Matt Belisle - 7 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K

Marte hit his 14th and 15th homers of the year and raised his SLG to .492, second-best in the league. He's gone hitless in just 4 games since the first of July and hit .321/.351/.554 in that time. And we thought his 2002 season was good. Here's a comparison:

YEAR   AVG   OBP   SLG  BB/AB

2002  .281  .339  .492  .08

2003  .297  .376  .492  .14

Belisle got his first AAA win with an excellent 7 innings. He has yet to walk a batter in 20 innings and has a 2.25 ERA. Atlanta or bust!

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 14 games
Carl Loadenthal - 8 games
Adam LaRoche - 7 games
Mike Hessman - 7 games

Bubba Nelson made his Richmond debut and worked a scoreless 8th inning. Baseball America's Josh Boyd called Nelson move to the bullpen "peculiar" in Friday's Daily Dish.

Greenville managed just 3 hits against Jacksonville's Greg Miller in a dominating 14-strikeout performance. Of course, Charles Thomas had one of those hits to keep his 14-game streak alive.

Dan Curtis struck out 8 batters in 7 innings which his a high for him in AA. He whiffed 10 batters twice in Myrtle Beach.

Kevin Barry had a horrid outing, allowing 2 runs without recording an out. After a 0.00 ERA in July, he has a 21.61 ERA in his 3 games this month.

Bryan Digby appeared in his first game for Greenville and allowed 2 runs on 2 hits and a couple of walks in one inning.

In addition to Marte's two blasts, Scott Thorman also homered in Myrtle Beach's 6th straight loss. Marte and Thorman both moved down a spot in the lineup this week with Marte now batting cleanup and Thorman hitting 5th. Those two have combined to hit .298/.349/.614 this month.

Manuel Acosta made his Braves' debut and gave up 2 unearned runs in 1.1 innings. Matt Butler walked 5 batters and gave up 2 hits in 1.2 relief innings.

Rome swept a doubleheader behing outing from Anthony Lerew (5.1 IP, 3 R) and Ryan Ewin (5 IP, 0 R). Ewin now has a 2.28 ERA for the year - and that includes a 7-run mess 3 weeks ago.

Mike Grasso led the way in the second game by going 3-for-3 with a double.

Chuck James struck out 4 and allowed 1 run in 5 innings for Danville. Despite leading the league in ERA (1.35) and being second in strikeouts (53), James has just one win. Of course that's probably because Brad Nelson (7-1 as a reliever) is hogging them all.

Twenty-two more hits and 16 more runs for Orlando. Wow!

Jarrod Saltalamacchia went 3-for-3 and hit his first professional HR. Over his last 8 games, he's hitting .400/.545/.680.

Carlos Moreta went 4-for-6 and hit his 7th HR of the year to tie him for the league-lead with Steve Doetsch. Doetsch had 3 hits and moved into 3rd place in the league in hitting with a .344 average. Carl Loadenthal walked twice and also hit his 1st HR. Oh yeah, Kelly Johnson went 2-for-6 with a double. Whew!

And if that wasn't news enough, Matt McClendon pitched! Yeah, that Matt McClendon. The one that was ranked as the #2 prospect in the organization after the 2000 season. He started the 2002 season in Richmond and worked his way backwards - Greenville then Myrtle Beach - because he suddenly couldn't find the plate. Here's a quick glance at each stop:

TEAM         ERA   BB/9

Richmond     8.16  6.1

Greenville   5.91  6.2

Myrtle Beach 8.68  8.9

He made 17 appearances in Myrtle Beach last year and walked 28 batters in 17.2 IP.

So the good news is that: 1) he's back, and 2) he only walked 1 of the 6 batters he faced yesterday.

Jo Jo Reyes appeared in relief of McClendon and threw 5 scoreless innings while striking out 7. He has a 1.46 ERA and has struck out 45 batters in 37 innings.

 
Greg Miller made the much-rumored move to Greenville this afternoon. He hit .263/.327/.310 at Myrtle Beach with just 17% of hits going for extra-bases. I know Coastal Federal Field can affect the average and the power of a hitter, but how exactly does it affect someone's walks? Miller's BB/AB at home was .068. On the road, it was .102. Unless there's another move when the rosters expand, Miller will probably be the 4th OF for the G-Braves.

 
MLBBies for August 7
Cory Aldridge - 2-for-5, 2B, HR
Ray Aguilar - 7 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K

A lot of people would point to Aldridge's strikeouts as the thing that's holding him back from a productive career. My only argument to that theory is even though he's on his way to putting up the worst numbers of his career, his K rate is actually down this year. As his is power. And his average. I had high hopes for him this year, mistakenly basing that on his 17 games of rehab in 2002. He should be a minor-league free agent after this year, unless last season's lack of real games played qualifies him for an exemption.

I love Ray Aguilar, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. He routinely pitches 2 or more innings in his relief appearances. He has a ton of strikeouts (8.7 K/9 this year and 9.7 last year). And he rarely walks anyone (2.1 BB/9 and a 4.0 K/BB). What's not to love? I wish I could do graphs here, because I think his rest between appearances would make an interesting one. He usually averages about 3 days' rest per appearance, so he's only available twice a week at most. The Braves have so many great pitchers at this level, but I bet that in another organization Aguilar would be a starter exclusively.

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 13 games
Onil Joseph - 9 games
Ryan Langerhans - 7 games
Carl Loadenthal - 7 games
Adam LaRoche - 6 games
Mike Hessman - 6 games

Richmond's game was cancelled and Rome's was merely postponed.

Richard Lewis homered in his second-straight game for Greenville. Last year's numbers (at a difficult park for hitters) look golden next to his struggles this season at AA:

YEAR   AVG   OBP   SLG  BB/AB K/BB

2002  .279  .359  .355   .11   .17

2003  .224  .307  .360   .09   .23

Billy Sylvester recorded a scoreless 9th inning and has allowed runs in just 4 of his 31 games this year. He's only walked 1 batter in his last 8 innings which borders on miraculous for him.

Brayan Pena collected 3 more hits to raise his average to .312. This after hitting just .229/.290/.299 last year at Macon.

Macay McBride went 7 innings and allowed 4 runs on 7 hits. He also only struck out 2 batters which is very rare for him as he averages almost 6 per start.

After having a 5.18 ERA through his first 20 games, Paul Bush has allowed just 1 run in his last 9 games for an ERA of 0.69.

Scott Schade K'd 4 times for Danville last night to take over the team lead from Dean White. Congratulations!

As a reliever on a short-season team, one outing will really screw up the ERA. Glen Tucker's 3.20 doesn't look all that impressive until you take out the bad outing he had in his 4th game. It then drops almost a full run to 2.22.

Carlos Moreta went 2-for-4 and has 9 hits in his last 15 AB.

Luis Atilano allowed just 1 run for the third-straight game and lowered his ERA to a nice even 5.00. Over the last 3 starts. his ERA is 1.69 and his WHIP is 0.88.

Orlando is clearly the class of the GCL this year as they improved to 30-15. They have a 9-game lead in their division. Much like their parent club, the have a very large division lead. Unlike Atlanta, the GCL Braves have good hitting AND pitching...

Richmond and Greenville will each be able to an additional player this weekend as rosters expand back to 24 on Sunday.

 
The Braves have signed Manuel Acosta, a 22-year-old RHP originally in the Yankees organization and assigned him to Myrtle Beach. He was signed in 1998 out of Panama and spent two years playing in the Dominican Summer League. Since moving to the GCL in 2000, Acosta has posted a 4.45 ERA with 213 strikeouts and 145 walks in 263 innings. He played his third season in low-A ball this year going 0-8 with a 6.64 ERA and an ugly 45 BBs to go with 45 Ks. It's likely he'll be used as a reliever unless the Pelicans are having second thoughts on Matt Butler in the rotation.

Greg Donato was placed on the DL with an abdominal strain to make room for Yaron Peters in Rome.

 
MLBBies for August 6
Keith Eichas - 5-for-5, 2B
Adam Wainwright - 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K

Eichas has been coming into Orlando's games halfway though and only getting a couple of ABs in during the last week or so. That might be because of an injury, or maybe he just needed some rest. But it's definitely not because he can't hit. In games that he's started, Eichas is batting .387/.453/.693.

Wainwright seems to have hit the proverbial wall and crashed right through it. He had a strech in June and early July when he gave 4 or more runs in 4 out of 5 games. But in his last 5 starts, he's averaged over 6 innings (and gone 7 in the last 3 games) and has an ERA of just 2.53. He's also re-discovered the strikeout with 27 in the last 32 innings.

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 12 games
Onil Joseph - 9 games
Ryan Langerhans - 7 games
Steve Doetsch - 7 games
Adam LaRoche - 6 games
Mike Hessman - 6 games

Stat of the day: Yesterday's starters combined for a 1.55 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 6.5 K/9 and 1.9 BB/9.

Ryan Langerhans was pretty much a lock to get a September call-up even before his promotion to AAA. But in case the folks in the front office were planning on bringing up him halfway through the month like last year, perhaps his .320/.382/.580 line will cause them to re-think that strategy.

The Times-Dispatch has a nice article on how young the current Richmond team is - although the headline could use a little work.

I'm still wondering about the decision to use Bubba Nelson in the bullpen rather than as a starter. The most apparent explanation is that they simply see him as a future reliever. Usually an organization will wait until after a player has had some trouble as a starter to make that switch. But other than a couple of bad outings this year and a low strikeout rate, Nelson hadn't really run into those sort of troubles.

Another possible reason is they want to limit his pitch count. He threw 151 innings in 2001, 140.2 in 2002, and he's already hit 119 this year. It wouldn't make a huge difference, but maybe enough to keep him around 130 or so. Of course, if they were really worried about the number of innings logged on his arm, they would probably just shut him down or skip a start or two.

Regardless of the reason, this may be the quickest path to Atlanta for Nelson.

Ho-hum, Charles Thomas went 3-for-5 again. He's inches from having a .500 average and OBP in his return to AA.

Jean Boscan hit just his 3rd HR of the year last night. He's got a combined SLG of just .294 at Greenville and Myrtle Beach.

Ray Aguilar will get Nelson's start tonight for Greenville. He's got a 2.96 ERA as a reliever this year and a 8.64 ERA in 2 starts.

Andy Marte's on-base streak is up to 27 games.

Dan Meyer allowed 2 runs on 8 hits and a walk in his 5-inning start last night. He's averaging just 1.5 walks every 9 innings.

Wes Timmons went 3-for-4 and raised his OBP to .379.

Kyle Davies is dueling with former Brave Merkin Valdez for the SAL strikeout lead, and he didn't help things by whiffing just 2 batters in each of his last 2 starts. Davies has a 6-game losing streak, although his ERA in that time is just 3.96.

Another typical game for Orlando - 10 runs on 17 hits with 3 doubles and a HR. In addition to Eichas's 5 hits, Carlos Moreta went 3-for-4, while Carl Loadenthal, Kelly Johnson and Brian Stoecklein each had 2 hits. Johnson is now 6-for-13 with a triple and a HR in his 3 games of rehab.

Eduardo Rosario tossed 5 scoreless innings allowing just 6 hits while striking out 5 batters.

 
Yaron Peters has been sent back to Rome to work out some kinks. After hitting .295/.347/.476 in 61 games with Rome, Peters batted just .170 while mostly playing DH for Myrtle Beach.

Also, Bryan Digby was promoted to Greenville to take Bubba Nelson's spot, and Kyle Roat was sent back to the Beach after a very short stay in AA. Greenville now has just 21 players on their active roster, although Kelly Johnson should be back soon. Greg Miller was also placed on the DL a few days ago.

 
According to various sources (Tom Paciorek among them!), Will Cunnane was promoted to Atlanta to replace Darren Holmes who heads to the DL with a sore shoulder. Cunnane must've also had his contract purchased and been added to the 40-man roster. There had been one open spot on the 40-man, so it is now full.

Cunnane's a 29-year-old reliever who was signed by the Braves on July 1. He has 155 games of major-league experience with the Padres, Brewers and Cubs, although with a career 5.36 ERA, none of it is anything to be excited about. At Richmond, Cunnane allowed 2 runs (0 earned) in 21 innings. He struck out 19 and walked 2. He also held lefties to a .077 average.

Also, Bubba Nelson has been called up to Richmond and will supposedly join their bullpen. Guess he was appearing in relief for Greenville for a reason. It's an interesting move for a 21-year-old who was ranked as the Braves' 2nd-best pitching prospect entering the season...

 
MLBBies for August 5
Kelly Johnson - 3-for-5, 3B, HR (rehab)
Jake Stevens - 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K

I thought about disqualifying Johnson because this was, after all, just a rehab start. But then I figured that would be taking the whole thing too seriously. Johnson went on the DL on July 10th with some tendinitis in his right elbow. He's been working out in Orlando for the last 2 weeks and finally began his official rehab stint on Monday. It's hard to be exact about when the elbow problem affected his numbers, but it might be traceable to the middle of June. From June 13 until he went on the DL, Johnson hit .200 with just 3 doubles and no HRs in 65 ABs.

As a refresher, Stevens was the 3rd-round choice of the Braves selected with the compensation pick from the Mets for Tom Glavine. With his mid-90s fastball and 6'3" frame, he was ranked as an early-second-round talent by Baseball America. Score one for the high-school-lovin' guys. Stevens dropped his ERA to 2.56 overall which includes the mess that was his first pro game (4 runs in .2 IP). Yesterday's 6-inning outing was by far his longest of the year.

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 11 games
Onil Joseph - 8 games
Ryan Langerhans - 6 games
Steve Doetsch - 6 games

Adam LaRoche was hit in the knee by a pitch on Sunday, so he sat out Monday and most of Tuesday's game. He did pinch-hit yesterday - just in time to score the winning run.

Ryan Langerhans is hitting .385/.429/.577 over his 6-game hitting streak and .318/.375/.545 since his promotion to Richmond.

Andy Pratt rebounded from his 2 previous bad starts and allowed just 1 run on 4 hits in 6 innings. He lowered his home ERA to 2.39. On the road, it's a non-too-pretty 5.26.

Charles Thomas, who was the victim of the rehab scandal in today's MLBBies, went 3-for-5 with a triple. He's had multiple hits in 6 of the 11 games since his return to Greenville.

Remember this entry from June 23rd: "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." Well, my mysterious power strikes again. Since that fateful write-up, Orr has hit .393/.500/.536 over the last 10 games.

What is it about Greenville that offends Chris Waters??? He gave up 7 runs in 5 innings last night and now has a 6.57 ERA at home. On the road, his ERA is 2.79.

Billy Sylvester has worked 7 straight scoreless outings, each of them comprising exactly 1 inning. He's allowed just 2 hits and a walk in that time while recording 10 strikeouts.

Andy Marte and Scott Thorman each hit solo HRs. That marked just the second time this year that both sluggers have gone deep in the same game. It was Thorman's 10th of the year but just his first since July 11th. Marte leads the team with 13 HRs.

Matt Coenen gave up 6 runs, 5 of them earned, in Myrtle Beach's loss. The Braves acquired Coenen from the Tigers for Chris Spurling, a Rule 5 pick that wasn't going to stick in the Braves' bullpen all year. So the Braves got a 23-year-old lefty for virtually nothing, and he exploded out of the gate. Said gate has come crashing back and whapped in the face a few times now. I wonder if the reason that the Tigers gave Coenen up so readily is that they knew he was just a first-half pitcher. Pure conjecture. Perhaps there's an undisclosed injury that's causing his numbers to do this:

              ERA  WHIP  K/9  B/9

April-May    2.16  1.00  7.6  2.9

June-present 5.00  1.61  4.5  4.2

Rome had the night off.

Dominique Partridge had 2 more steals last night and is now a perfect 8-for-8 in SB attempts. He's also picked up his hitting of late, clubbing .367/.406/.467 over the last 8 games.

Coming off just 3 days' rest, Roberto Nieves couldn't duplicate his success from his last outing when he threw a no-hitter for 5 innings. Working just 2 innings yesterday, he allowed 3 runs on 4 hits and a walk.

Jacob Blakeney, the Braves 22nd-rounder from Mississippi State, has tossed 23.1 straight scoreless innings. His WHIP during that time is a microbial 0.69.

Carlos Moreta went 3-for-4, and Carl Loadenthal and Steve Doetsch each had 2 hits. Doetsch now has six-straight games with 2 hits and has multiple hits in 12 of his last 17 games.

The Dan Smith mystery continues. I should know something tomorrow. Of course, I've said that before...

 
Some days I really earn my money handing out the MLBBie awards. Although come to think of it, I still haven't received my first paycheck yet. Anyway, there were some tough decisions to be made on today's MLBBies. Which is more the more noteworth achievement: Jeff Francoeur and his 2 walks or Scott Schade and his 2 HRs? On the pitching side, there were three excellent starts turned in by Brett Evert, Zach Miner and Blaine Boyer and some nice relief outings by Buddy Hernandez and Paul Bacot. Alright, I've built up enough suspense...

MLBBies for August 4
Scott Schade - 2-for-4, 2 HRs
Brett Evert - 7 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K

It was a tough call, but this gives me a chance to talk about Shade and his recent success. Plus, it's not like hitting 2 HRs in a game is chopped liver. Back on July 24th, I noted Schade's lack of power so far in the season and his then 41 AB streak of no extra-base hits. Well, I think it's obvious to most of you now that I have some sort of mystic power available to me. By merely noting something not happening, I can make it occur. Since that entry, Schade has hit .306 with a .556 SLG. Fear me.

Last year, Jung Bong struggled in the first part of the year as a starter and was sent to the bullpen to work through some things. He had a lot of success there, and that confidence carried over when he returned to the rotation towards the end of Greenville's season. Brett Evert is this year's Bong. After putting up a 5.18 ERA in his first 7 starts, Evert was converted into a reliever. In 17 relief appearances, he posted a 2.62 ERA. Put back into the rotation after Matt Belisle's promotion, Evert has tossed 12 scoreless innings while striking out 12 batters and walking just 3. Here's hoping that, like Bong, Evert can carry that success into Atlanta next year.

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 10 games
Onil Joseph - 8 games

Do I mention Mike Hessman every day? It sure seems like it. Another HR on Monday, and he's got 4 in the last 4 days. He also has 4 straight multi-hit games.

Nick Green also hit his 9th HR of the year and is batting .375/.417/.679 over the last 18 games.

Not only can Buddy Hernandez pitch (2.2 hitless innings to lower his ERA to 3.13), but he can hit as well! Who knew? He doubled last night in just his third AB of the year. Buddy's supposed weakness has been his inability to pitch in back-to-back games. Here's how he's done this year based on how many days he has been rested:

Rest     Games  IP   H  R ER BB  K  ERA   WHIP

0          2    3.2  2  0  0  1  5  0.00  0.82

1         20   26.0 26 11 10  9  31 3.46  1.35

2         13   18.2 13  7  7  9  22 3.38  1.18

3          7    8.0  7  4  4  3  8  4.50  1.25

4 or more  2    3.0  1  0  0  2  0  0.00  1.00

Sometimes you just throw stats out there and hope there's a pattern. He's gone back-to-back in two games this year and had success, though obviously, that's not much to go on. He strikes out more guys on 2 days of rest and seems to be a little more unhittable. Other than that, you'd be hard-pressed to find a discernable pattern.

Charles Thomas is really enjoying Greenville. He's now 19-for-42 (.452) with a .762 SLG since his return to AA and has a hit in all 10 of those games. Thomas, Jason Fitzgerald, Cory Aldridge, Bryon Jeffcoat and Ramon Castro all had 2 hits last night.

Bubba Nelson made a relief appearance last night, but you shouldn't worry that he's been shifted to the bullpen. He only went two-thirds of an inning on Friday because of some bad weather, so last night's stint was probably just to get him back on schedule. Looks like he's still slated to start Thursday's game.

Andy Marte has a .421 OBP over his 25-game streak.

Zach Miner allowed 2 runs on 5 hits and 1 walk in his 6 innings of work. He also struck out 6 batters. You usually don't see strikeout rates increase as the season goes on, but that's what's happened with Miner. Through June, his K/9 was 4.0. Since the beginning of July, it's up to 7.7.

Matt Merricks, who has been used on the bullpen since his return from the DL, allowed a run in 3 innings.

I think Miguel Bernard was extremely upset by Kyle Roat's two promotions in the last 10 days. Alright, I'm making that up. But since Roat was sent to Myrtle Beach, Bernard has hit .316/.364/.579.

Ardley Jansen batted in the 5th spot for the first time this season and hit his first triple. Coincidence? Well, yeah.

Blaine Boyer threw 7 shutout innings - his third scoreless outing in a row. He had a 6.28 ERA in his first 12 starts. And a 1.92 in his last 9. Nice turn-around.

Sung Jung has allowed just 1 run his last 16 appearances, a total of 21.2 innings. He's lowered his overall ERA to 2.28.

Danny Collins made it through just 2 innings for Danville. He might've been a victim of the pitch-count as he gave up 4 hits and walked 2 batters.

Edwin Martinez showed up in Orlando's boxscore yesterday. Which is impossible since he also played for Danville. So someone impersonating Martinez went 0-for-3 with a walk, a strike out and 2 steals.

Steve Doetsch went 2-for-5 and is now third in the league with a .346 average. He also leads the league in hits, is tied for the lead in HRs and is third in SLG.

Paul Bacot took over the GCL lead in ERA (0.95) with 4.2 scoreless innings. And with his 26 Ks and 4 BBs, he also has to have one of the top K/BB ratios in the league as well.

Matt Harrison, who came into the game with a 1.74 ERA, started and allowed a season-high 5 runs and 10 hits in 4.1 innings.

 
Today's Times-Dispatch has an article on Adam LaRoche's two-way possibilities - as a pitcher as well as a hitter.

Brooks Kieschnick is the closest thing to a two-way player currently in the majors, although it doesn't look like the Brewers have completely adopted the idea. Kieschnick has pitched in 31 games, but on offense, he's only had 17 ABs as a DH. One aspect that the Brewers seen to have taken advantage of is the ability to have your reliever stay in the game when it's his turn at the plate, and Kieschnick has gone 6-for-17 as a pitcher.

LaRoche pitched once this year for Greenville, striking out one of the two batters he faced.

Baseball America polled minor-league managers for their annual "Best Tools" feature. Adam LaRoche was named "Best Defensive 1B" for both the International and Southern Leagues. Andy Pratt has the "Best Breaking Pitch." Andy Marte was named as the Carolina League's "Most Exciting Player" and "Best Defensive 3B." "Best Infield Arm" went to Tony Pena. Angelo Burrows was Rome's only representative earning "Best Outfield Arm" in the South Atlantic League.

One quote regarding Marte:

"He's the most gifted infielder I've seen with the best range from that side of the field. His reactions are so pure, they look so natural; which is only a credit to the work he's put in. Add to that how dangerous he can be at the plate and you have a potential big league all-star."
-- Kinston manager Torey Lovullo on Myrtle Beach third baseman Andy Marte

 
MLBBies for August 3
Mike Hessman - 6-for-11, HR in doubleheader
Matt Wright - 6.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 10 K

Sure, some of Hessman's ABs actually came in Saturday's suspended game, but officially, he had 6 hits yesterday. That makes 5 HRs in the last 8 games, and he's hit .419/.471/.903 over that span. For a slightly larger, less-Bonds-ish sample size, he's hit .284/.321/.581 since his return from his back injury in mid-July.

It feels like I just wrote about Wright's control problems. Guess it was about 5 days ago. This was Wright's 4th consecutive start with 4 or more walks. But, wait, the MLBBies are a time for celebration. On to the good news... Wright had a no-hitter through 5 innings after striking out the first 6 batters he faced. He then gave up a solo HR in the 7th and his 4th walk before he was 'relieved' by Fernando Tadefa. Tadefa allowed two more runs in the inning, and one of those was credited to Wright. So all-in-all, it was an extremely effective performance by Wright - even with those gosh-darn walks.

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 9 games
Onil Joseph - 7 games

Jaime Emiliano, who's been superb all year, allowed a 13th-inning run in the Richmond's completed game from Saturday. He also happens to be Richmond's most-used reliever which may explain his recent troubles. He's sporting a 6.17 ERA over his last 8 appearances. It was 1.88 in the 37 preceding games.

Matt Belisle allowed 1 earned run in 7 innings on Saturday before the rains came.

Chris Fussell had one of the clunkers that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago - 6 runs and 10 baserunners in 6.1 innings.

Wilson "The Tripler" Betemit was at it again. That's six 3-baggers in his last 12 games. The "fringe prospect" that Baltimore didn't want hit .313/.396/.550 in July. And he just turned 23. Now, I didn't want Sidney Ponson anyway, and the Orioles got a decent enough package for him from the Giants. But calling Betemit a fringe anything when your current AAA SS and 3B are hitting a combined .274/.336/.360 and are both 2-3 years older than Betemit, well, it's no wonder why the Orioles are where they are today...

Chris Waters, Pinch Hitter. He didn't throw a pitch in yesterday's game, but he was called upon to bunt and did it successfully. Billy Sylvester also appeared at the plate and got his first AB of the year. He struck out.

Dan Curtis allowed 4 runs yesterday, and of course, he was on the road. That raised his road ERA to 6.20. His home ERA is a microscopic 1.06.

Brayan Pena went 3-for-4 and raised his numbers to .315/.339/.414.

Andy Marte was 0-for-2, but he walked and extended his on-base streak to 24 games.

Matt Butler couldn't get out of the 3rd inning, but (or should that be "and") he managed to give up 7 runs - 6 of them earned. He also walked a season-high three batters.

Brian McCann is dinged up with an undisclosed leg injury and may miss a few games.

Sean White had his best (and longest) start of the year, allowing 1 run on 3 hits in 5 innings.

Dan Mead has had 2 consecutive scoreless appearances, so that means he's lowered (yes, I said lowered) his ERA to 8.84. He has given up more walks than hits (is that good or bad news?) and has a 2.29 WHIP. Even with Mead's 'contributions,' the Danville bullpen has a 1.94 team ERA.

Tomorrow on MLBB: Dan Smith Revealed!

 
Greenville has added Kyle Roat from Myrtle Beach and Matt Blank, a 27-year-old lefty who was released by San Francisco two weeks ago. Blank was immediately put on the DL. More later...

 
I've finally added a MLBBie tally in the left margin. I started giving out the daily awards on July 8, so 27 have been distributed. I haven't intentionally tried to give them out to as many players as possible, but that's what's happened. Twenty different hitters and 22 different pitchers have been sent their cash award. Did I just say that?

 
Feels like I've been away for months. First, some MLBBie housekeeping...

MLBBies for July 30
Carlos Moreta - 2-for-6, 2B, HR
Danny Collins - 5 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K

MLBBies for July 31
Jeff Francoeur - 3-for-4, 3B, HR, BB
Adam Wainwright - 7 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K

MLBBies for August 1
Matt Esquivel - 3-for-3, 2 HR
Roberto Nieves - 5 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K

MLBBies for August 2
Jeff Francoeur - 2-for-4, 2B, 3B, BB
Ryan Ewin - 8 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 8 K

I talked a little last week about Francoeur's walk problem. Well, he ruined my 4-walks-a-month theory and has taken 3 in the past 6 games. I'll take that rate anyday. Especially if he keeps hitting like this. Over the last 6 games, he's batting .455/.556/.955 with 2 doubles, 3 triples and a HR.

Ewin's 8-inning outing was easily his longest of the year. He now has a 2.88 ERA in 6 starts, and more than 50% of that is because of a bad performance 10 days ago. He also has 37 Ks and 8 BBs in those 34.1 IP.

Hitting Streaks
Charles Thomas - 8 games
Onil Joseph - 6 games

Ryan Langerhans went 4-for-5 on Friday and is now batting .333/.379/.667 after 9 games.

Mike Hessman clubbed 2 more HRs, his third multi-homer game of the year.

Lee Evans was promoted to Richmond today to take the spot of Mike Hubbard who was placed on the DL. Evans and Hubbard have had similar seasons so far, batting .230/.316/.350 and .236/.291/.339, respectively.

Charles Thomas is batting .457/.500/.800 during his current 8-game streak.

Adam Wainwright went 7 innings for the second-straight time on Friday. He also won his first game in almost 2 months. You can't put any weight in a minor-leaguer's W-L numbers, but with Wainwright, they are fairly telling:

Decision   ERA

Win       1.85

Loss      6.89

Adam Stern returned to the Myrtle Beach lineup on Saturday and went 1-for-3. He finished his Orlando rehab after hitting .345/.457/.483. His return most likely means Angelo Burrows heads back to the bench. Burrows has hit just .241/.267/.276 since his return to the Beach.

Andy Marte has reached base in 23 straight games - 21 of those via a hit. He's hit .341/.424/.529 in those games.

Macay McBride allowed just an unearned run in his 7-inning outing yesterday. He also struck out 7 and walked just 1. McBride has put up better numbers on the road (a 2.32 ERA) than at home (3.42 ERA) which is of course a little odd for Pelican pitchers. And he has 29 Ks and just 4 walks in his last 4 starts.

Brian McCann's power has dropped off a bit lately, most likely because of the amount of home games he's had to play. At the sparkling State Mutual Stadium, his SLG is a very meager .358. On the road, it's .581.

Onil Joseph has had 3 multi-hit games in his current 6-game streak and has hit .462/.548/.577 over the last week.

Anthony Lerew tossed 7 shutout innings on Friday and has quietly, I would say, put together an extremely good first full season. Here's a comparison to his 2002 season at Danville:

Year  ERA   WHIP  K/9  K/BB OppBA

2002  1.73  1.02  8.1  3.0  .205

2003  2.45  1.07  7.9  2.9  .215

Not too bad for an 11th-round draft pick...

Matt Esquivel has 5 HRs in his last 11 games and currently has a .566 SLG.

On Friday, Roberto Nieves struck out 8 batters in his 3rd start of the year. As a starter and reliever, Nieves has a 12.8 K/9. Oh yeah, he also had no-hitter intact when he left the game.

Dan Smith and his 1.61 ERA were promoted to Danville on Friday.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia's hitting seems to have come around with 7 hits - 4 of those doubles - in his last 16 ABs.

Steve Doetsch has had four consecutive 2-hit games and raised his numbers to .353/.418/.562.

Luis Atilano had his best game of the year on Friday, one-hitting the Marlins for 5 innings. Jo Jo Reyes followed that up on Saturday with 4 shutout innings.