**Phil Irwin gets the start tonight for Bradenton, Cole will go tomorrow** Top ranked prospect Gerrit Cole, makes his sixth start of his pro career tonight. He is coming off of his best career start five days ago in which he threw a one hitter over six innings. Altoona will play a double header today consisting of two 7 inning games. A full recap of yesterday’s games can be found here.
Gerrit Cole is second in strikeouts for Bradenton behind Jameson Taillon
Triple-A: Indianapolis (14-13) VS Louisville (10-19) 7:05pm
Probable starter: Jeff Locke (2-1 2.89)
Yesterday’s Result: Indianapolis 5 Norfolk 10 (game story here)
Jeff Locke will make his sixth start of the season tonight. He has greatly improved since a rough beginning this year. In his first two starts, he allowed seven runs in nine innings. In his three outings since, he has given up just two runs in 19 total innings. In 28 innings, Locke has recorded 23 strikeouts, with a season high of eight on 4/18 in his second straight start against Columbus. Left-handed batters are hitting .163 against him.
Double-A: Altoona (11-15) VS Richmond (13-15) 5:00pm DH
Probable starter: Nate Baker (2-3 6.94) and Shairon Martis (0-0 0.00)
Yesterday’s Result: Altoona 8 Richmond 7
Nate Baker will get his sixth start tonight. After allowing one earned run in his first two starts(11 innings), Baker has allowed 17 earned runs in 12.1 innings during his last three starts. In each of those starts, he also gave up one unearned run. While he has struggled with command, walking 14 batters against just 12 strikeouts, Nate remains tough to homer against. He has yet to allow a home run this year, following a 2011 campaign in which he allowed just six homers in 148.1 innings while with Bradenton. Shairon Martis will be making his first start for Altoona and just his second appearance for the Curve. He pitched three innings in relief on 4/29, allowing one hit, one walk, no runs and he struck out three. He began the year with Indianapolis and in four relief appearances, he gave up seven runs in 8.1 innings.
High-A: Bradenton (12-16) @ Tampa (14-14) 6:00pm
Probable starter: Phil Irwin (2012 debut)
Yesterday’s Result: Bradenton 2 Tampa 0 (Jameson Taillon live report)
Phil Irwin gets his first start of the season tonight. He missed the beginning of the year with a forearm injury from the Arizona Fall League last season, that he re-injured during Spring Training. He went 13-4 3.14 last year in 140.2 innings, splitting the year between Altoona and Bradenton
Low-A: West Virginia (11-17) @ Greensboro (19-8) 7:00pm
Probable starter: Ryan Hafner (0-2 13.50)
Yesterday’s Result: West Virginia 8 Asheville 5
Ryan Hafner will make his third start of the season tonight after missing the beginning of the season recovering from a hamstring injury. In his opening start, he allowed seven runs(six earned) in three innings of work, striking out three while giving up five hits and two walks. He came back in his second start to go 3.2 innings, allowing four runs on six hits, four walks and he failed to strike out a batter. Ryan was the Pirates 17th round draft pick in 2010 and was ranked 30th overall in the Pirates Prospects 2012 Prospect Guide. He pitched last season for State College, where he went 2-6 3.15 in 69.2 innings. He struck out 31 batters and walked twenty.
May 5, 2012 at 8:00 am
Going to the Al Tuna DH today with Mrs Foo and a PG Plus ‘mate’. Wished I was going to Tampa, but……….lol. Let’s see…..Nate Baker or Gerritt Cole….hmmm….
May 5, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Any postgame notes on Baker or any of the batters would be appreciated, either in this post or in Tim’s nightly roundup. Have fun but more importantly, bring home two wins
May 6, 2012 at 9:59 am
John…..as requested.
Only made it to one game of the
Altoona Curve DH due to the driving distance (2 to 2/12 hrs) my wife was with me and the fact that
my eyes don’t do well at night driving anymore ….it sucks getting old….lol….but
then, I do get to retire, so……….Nice view of the Super Moon driving home.
Nate Baker was trying out his
newly learned two seam FB. It was sinking all day and he got lots of
groundouts. His FB was around 90 all day, but between that and a nice curve, he
was dominant. He seemed to have trouble commanding his few 4 seamers that he threw.
He made Gary Brown, the Giants # 1 prospect and
Tommy Joseph, their # 2 prospect, look foolish all 3 times they came up to bat.
Baker has had control problems, so perhaps this newly minted 2 seamer will
help?
The Curve would’ve won in regulation, but Richmond
OFer Chris Dominguez, who has a heck of an arm, gunned down Brady Holt at home in
the 5th.
Hitters
Batting against Giant’s soft
tossing non prospect Chris Heston, very few balls were stroked hard.
I continue
to not be impressed with Tony Sanchez’ bat. He hit one ball sorta hard (my seat mate was more impressed than me) for an out. There’s still time for him to come
around, but those A ball numbers appear to be a mirage at this point. His
defense looks MLB ready (nice and quiet behind the plate), but there are lots of
defense first catchers ‘running around’, so I am not that high on him at this
point.
Curry and Holt had some nice
hits, those two combining on the near run. Holt showed why he is not considered
a viable everyday ML SS (reminds me of a Jeff Keppinger – bat first – type of
player) making a horrible play on a ball he had to charge and short hop. It
wasn’t an easy play, but not overly hard for a MLB SS.
Robbie G had a semi hard hit 1b,
but K’d twice, one of them looking a bit inside to us. Overall, he still looks
like he is adjusting to AA and will need more time.
I have yet to see Quincy Latimore
look good, and I think whatever ‘star’ he had is fading fast. I was
disappointed to not see my new ‘stud’ Adelberto Santos play (got the immortal
Charles Cutler instead), but….
Got home just in time to watch
Grilli ‘K’ Brandon Phillips and the Hammer shut down the 9th. Good day all around!
.
May 6, 2012 at 10:00 am
Copied that writeup directly from Word…DISQus did a lousy formatting job….