On the farm, all eyes were on Andrew Painter in his return to Lehigh Valley for an arsenal tuneup. How’d he do?
Syracuse 5, Lehigh Valley 4
Well, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t too bad. Painter ended up throwing only 80 pitches across four innings, allowing one run on three hits, two walks and striking out three. According to the Savant page for the game, he held the velocity on the fastball well into the start, but only got six whiffs on the page. As they try to get him back on track, it’s at least
a start.
As for the rest of the game, there wasn’t much offense from the IronPigs. Felix Reyes hit a laser beam home run, Paul McIntosh had two hits and a run scored, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the rest of the pitching staff falling apart behind Painter. Ryan Cusick allowed three runs in 2 1/3 innings of relief, which ended up being the difference.
Reading 9, Altoona 4
Aroon Escobar has struggled this season. The shine on his prospect status has most definitely dimmed a bit this year, but on Sunday, his home run helped lead the offense for the Fightin’ Phils to a 9-4 victory over the Curve. Escobar’s home run was joined by Alex Binelas, Raylin Heredia and Erick Brito all going two for five with a double and two RBI, something I’ll bet hasn’t happened much in major or minor league history. Braydon Tucker had a so-so outing on the mound, allowing four runs in five innings, but as you can see, the offense was of great help to his cause. So was a bullpen of Estibenzon Jimenez, Wei-Hui Pan, Christian McGowan and Alex McFarlane all combining for only two hits allowed and five strikouts over four innings of relief. Maybe the team has actually developed some homegrown relievers?
Brooklyn 5, Jersey Shore 1
Devin Saltiban homered.
That’s the highlight.
Even with walking ten times as an offense, the BlueClaws only managed to scratch out one run, which seems impossible to do. Reese Dutton was good – five innings, one run on three hits, three walks and seven strikeouts – but was undone by a poor outing in relief from Adilson Peralta (1 IP, 4 R, 3 ER, 3 H, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 HR). This is not a good roster, folks.
Clearwater 5, Jupiter 4
Will Vierling and Jonathan Hogart each homered for the Threshers, who needed an error in the ninth inning by the Hammerheads to score the winning run just to get the victory. The two home runs were the highlight of the offense, though Hogart did end up going two for four on the day. Giuseppe Velasquez had four innings of good starting pitching for Clearwater, only giving up two hits and two walks to couple with five strikeouts.
