Minor League Schedule and Recaps

FRIDAY'S GAMES

In the interest of saving time now that there are eight teams to recap, I will start simply posting a link with the day's schedule. There are only so many hours in the day! Click on the link above to see the schedule.
Well, that didn't work. Let's try this.

DSL Cardinals	DSL Astros	9:30 am
GCL Nationals	GCL Astros	11:00 am
Greeneville	Kingsport	6:00 pm	Lee, Christopher (0-0, -.--)
Tri-City	Connecticut	6:05 pm
Lexington	West Virginia	6:05 pm	Ordosgoitti, Luis (1-1, 4.38)	Rowland, Robby (2-1, 3.12)
Corpus Christi	Frisco	7:00 pm	Doran, Bobby (0-0, -.--)	Loux, Barret (11-0, 3.03)
Oklahoma City	Nashville	7:05 pm	Oberholtzer, Brett (0-1, 6.75)	Peralta, Wily (2-8, 5.96)
Lancaster	Lake Elsinore	9:05 pm	De Leon, Jorge (1-5, 7.80)	Smith, Burch (5-4, 3.95)

Match-up to watch - Bobby Doran will make his Corpus debut against the very tough Barrett Loux (11-0) at Frisco.

THURSDAY'S RECAPS

DSL Astros at DSL Cardinals Postponed

GCL Marlins over GCL Astros 4-0
The hard-throwing lefty Reymin Guduan got the start giving up three runs on four hits and three walks and was charged with his first loss. He was followed by none other than Jandel Gustave who won my award for being the wildest pitcher in the Astros organization last season as he had 21 wild pitches and five hit batsmen in only 19.1 innings of work. Imagine my pride as he only had one wild pitch and one hit batter (and only gave up one run) in three innings of work! Andrew Walter gave up one hit in the final two. The offense won't take long. Yonathan Mejia and Javaris Reynolds each got a single. Other than four walks, that's pretty much it.

Tri-City over Vermont 5-3
Brian Holmes got the start followed by Tommy Shirley who got the win. John Neely made things a little interesting as he gave up two runs in the eighth to bring Vermont within two, but Blake Ford kept the door shut in the ninth and was rewarded with his first save. Tri-City got on the board in the second and never gave up the lead. Chase Davidson broke his hitting drought from the prior two games by going three-for-four with a double and an RBI. Jobduan Morales got his first stolen base of the season and Andrew Aplin and Justin Gominsky each had an outfield assist.

West Virginia over Lexington 9-4
Luis Cruz (L, 5-4) got touched for five runs (four earned) in his 5.1 innings of work and Gabriel Garcia allowed four in his inning. Lexington's early lead disappeared never to be seen again. Roberto Pena has slowly and quietly gotten his batting average up to .247, having hit .303 over the last ten (which is very welcome news). Jordan Scott and Matt Duffy each had two hits. Delino DeShields stole his 46th bag of the season (stolen bases for Brandon Meredith and Chan Moon as well). And Meredith hit his second home run of the season.

San Antonio over Corpus Christi 5-3 in 11 innings
Corpus Christi is going to desperately need their All-Star break next week after having participated in four extra inning games in their last five outings. Jose Cisnero allowed three runs on five hits and three walks. Josh Zeid and Alex Sogard kept the game close to give Corpus a chance, but the Hooks couldn't find the extra inning magic this time. Erick Abreu struck out the side in the tenth inning, but the 11th was his undoing as he gave up a walk and a walk off home run. Andy Simunic was three-for-five and Kody Hinze was two-for-four with an RBI.

Nashville over Oklahoma City 2-1
Armando Galaragga only pitched one scoreless inning before giving way to Aneury Rodriguez (L, 2-7) for five innings in which he gave up two runs to get charged with the loss. Chris Hicks pitched two innings and gave up only one hit to keep the Redhawks close, but they couldn't get a run across past the first inning. Fernando Martinez was two-for-two with an RBI in his first rehab outing.

Lake Elsinore over Lancaster 14-1
This one was a heartbreaker, not for Lancaster so much, but for me personally. It is painful for me to see a player struggle. I saw an extremely talented, fearless pitcher with a slider that made hitters look silly back in April in Lexington. He rarely walked anyone and wasn't afraid to pitch to contact. That pitcher, Jason Chowning, lost something on the way to Lancaster. He didn't lose his stuff. He lost his confidence. He tweeted something last night about being afraid of failure. You can't pitch scared, but that's what he's doing. And that is a very sad thing for me to see. Now back to the recap.

Lancaster only managed four hits against Lake Elsinore so even with solid pitching, this would have been a tough game to win, but the pitching was hardly that. Tyson Perez (four runs), Jason Chowning (six runs) and Brad Dydalewicz (four runs) just weren't able to find the key to the Lake Elsinore batters. Brian Streilein pitched a clean final frame but the damage was long done by then. Ben Heath was three-for-three and scored the sole Lancaster run via the long ball, and Rafy Valenzuela was one-for-three with a walk and a stolen base. That was the sum total of the Lancaster offense. This was truly a night to forget.

GAME OF THE DAY

Greeneville over Johnson City 10-3
For the second day in a row, Greeneville made Johnson City look silly. Francis Ramirez pitched a strong five innings in his first start for the win and the bullpen kept things well under control. About that offense. Wow. When Jean Batista's five-for-six outing isn't the best outing of the night, you know something is working well for you. Ariel Ovando and Jimmy Howick both had four hits and three RBIs and Ovando was just a home run shy of the cycle. When all was said and done, Greeneville had 19 hits, but almost better than that was the fact that there were no errors.

What went right: Ten runs, 19 hits and no errors with solid pitching.

What went wrong: Not enough to even mention.

Francis Ramirez - 5IP 3H 2R 1BB 2SO
Zachary Hardoin - 2IP 1H 1R 0BB 2SO 1HR
Christian Garcia - 1IP 3H 0R 0BB 1SO
Michael Dimock - 1IP 0H 0R 1BB 1SO

Jean Batista - 5x6 RBI R
Brian Blasik - 2x6 RBI 2R
Ariel Ovando - 4x5 2-2B 3B 3RBI SO 3R
Jimmy Howick - 4x5 2B 3RBI

Pitcher of the Day: Francis Ramirez wasn't glamorous but he was effective and on a day when many of the Astros pitchers struggled, effective was a very good thing.

Player of the Day: Ariel Ovando was ridiculous (and I mean that in a good way). Look for a first-hand report from Appy Astros who attended the game.