Round Rock Express 5 @ Iowa Cubs 8 (Game 1 of doubleheader)
Ian Stewart is apparently sick of riding the pine. You've undoubtedly by now heard about his 3-homer, 8 RBI game in the first half of today's doubleheader. Nobody else drove in a run, so he literally was the I-Cubs offense in this game. It'd be nice if this were the start of a return to form for Stewart. I don't think he'll ever play another game with the big league club, but if he spends the next 7 or 8 weeks mashing in AAA maybe he can get thrown in as a pot sweetener and net a marginally better prospect. I am probably too much of an optimist.
Dave Sappelt was 1-3 with a walk. Brent Lillibridge went 2-4 with a double. Nobody else had a hit. Logan Watkins had a walk and struck out three times. Brett Jackson and Junior Lake each had a walk. Steve Clevenger walked twice.
Nick Struck threw 6.2 innings, giving up 7 hits and 4 runs. He walked 4 and struck out 2. Meh. Alex Burnett blew the save but got the win, giving up a run and getting one strikeout in his 1.1 innings of work. I'm not sure how you blow a save in the eighth inning, but this is a special I-Cubs team. Casey Coleman worked a clean inning to finish up.
Round Rock Express 4 @ Iowa Cubs 5 (Game 2 of doubleheader)
Ian Stewart celebrated his 3 homer game by completely checking out of game 2, going 0-4 with a strikeout. Won't be holding my breath on his value being salvaged anytime soon.
I know the PCL is a hitter's league, but Brent Lillibridge hit a home run. I was under the impression Brent Lillibridge couldn't hit a ball out of the infield. What is happening.
Junior Lake had a good game, going 3-4 with 2 doubles and a stolen base. Logan Watkins was 1-3 with a walk and 2 Ks. Nobody else did anything terribly noteworthy, unless you count Brett Jackson striking out twice (he was 1-4).
Barret Loux's first game back off the DL was a decent start, giving up 2 hits and a run on 3 IP with 2 Ks. Jeffrey Antigua was not so good, giving up 2 runs on 3 hits in 2.2 IP. He walked 2 and K'ed 3. Marcus Hatley worked a clean inning and a third, walking and punching out 2 each. Hisanori Takahashi gave up an unearned run in an inning and two-thirds, striking out 2 and walking none. Brian Schittler got the last out to vulture the save.
Tennessee Smokies 2 @ Mobile BayBears 3 (10 innings)
Let's start with what you care about: Kyle Hendricks was pretty good, tossing 6 innings of 4 hit ball. He gave up 1 run, walked 2, and punched out 6. 14 of his 18 outs came on Ks or ground balls. He continues to be pretty good.
Trey McNutt worked a clean 7th with 2 Ks. Zach Rosscup worked a clean eighth, but gave up a run to blow the save in the ninth. He struck out 2 and gave up 3 hits, walking none.
Kevin Rhoderick had a pretty hilarious tenth inning. It started with a leadoff double to Keon Broxton. Nick Ahmed then beat out a bunt single in the process of trying to move Broxton to third. The Smokies intentionally walked Ender Inciarte to load the bases, after which Rhoderick promptly beaned Justin Greene for the rare walkoff HBP. It's a Way of Life.
On the offensive side, Rafael Lopez was 2-4 with a homer. Christian Villanueva went 2-4 as well, but could only manage a double. Arismendy Alcantara was 1-4 with a double. Jonathan Mota was 1-3 with a double and a walk. Rubi Silva went 1-4 with 2 strikeouts. Everybody else was a warmed-over pile of Cub.
Daytona Cubs
Off-day today.
Kane County Cougars 15 @ Cedar Rapids Kernels 1
4 Cougar homers in this one, all from the top of the order. Gioskar Amaya, Albert Almora, Dan Vogelbach, and Jeimer Candelario all went deep, and everybody in the lineup had at least one hit. Safe to say Kernels starter Brett Lee didn't have his best stuff with him today.
Almora's 4-5 days has his average back well above the .400 mark at .435. Candelario arguably had the better day, going 3-4 with two walks. Oliver Zapata and Reggie Golden both were 2-4 with a walk, but Zapata sent one of his for a double. Marco Hernandez was 2-3 with a double and 2 walks. Wilson Contreras was 2-6 with a double. Amaya and Rock Shoulders were both 1-5 with a walk, with Amaya's bomb trumping Shoulders' double. Dan Vogelbach didn't do much other than his home run, going 1-6.
Byron Buxton, Keith Law's new 2nd-ranked prospect in all of baseball, was 3-5.
On the pitching side, Michael Heesch was solid, scattering 8 hits and a walk over 6.1 innings, allowing one run and striking out 3. Ian Dickson had 2 strikeouts in his otherwise clean 1.2 innings of work. and Lendy Castillo proved he's still alive by striking out the side in the ninth.
DSL Braves @ DSL Cubs
This game doesn't happen for another 7 hours or so. If anything exciting happens I'll update this.
Comments
Nice to see that Villanueva has turned his season around. Almora won’t be in Kane County long.
dmick89Quote Reply
sitrick wrote:
Would probably be pretty tough to train that one
BerseliusQuote Reply
Command?
I seriously don’t think that Ian Stewart has any value at all left, 3 bombs or not. He’s a marginal player at the best of times who has demonstrated that he has, at best, a middling attitude towards this team. Fair or not, you’d expect a guy who has a very real chance at never playing at the MLB level ever again to run through walls for a team even if he hates them. IDK.
MylesQuote Reply
Stewart went unclaimed on waivers so I agree with Myles. Very little he could do to have much if any value.
dmick89Quote Reply
Forgot to run the B-Ref linker over it. Don’t write your recaps at 2 am, kids.
sitrickQuote Reply
@ Myles:
@ dmick89:
Yeah, I’m too much of an optimist. Go carebears.
sitrickQuote Reply
Uh…
http://manbearpuig.com/
This could be awesome if I had the right plugin to see what was embedded. Could it be his monstrous home runs? Or his cannon arm? Hmmm.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ sitrick:
Had he not been run through waivers I probably would have agreed. Since he was, that pretty much tells us that no other team in baseball even wanted the guy at the prorated league minimum.
dmick89Quote Reply
That’s a real quote from BCB. Seriously. They say the things you guys make fun of seriously. That makes me sad.
DoogolasQuote Reply
So then I say “Rectum? Damn near killed him!”
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
Suburban kidQuote Reply
I don’t know what that is, but it sounds scary.
SVBQuote Reply
@ SVB:
I believe it means skin cancer.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
26 seems a little young for skin cancer, doncha think?
SVBQuote Reply
@ SVB:
I don’t know. Maybe RC can chime in?
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
IIRC lymphoma is more like blood cancer. I think that’s what Jon Lester had.
BerseliusQuote Reply
http://www.clfoundation.org/about-cutaneous-lymphoma
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ SVB:
i’m not a physician. that said, lymphoma isn’t skin cancer, it’s white blood cells (B or T cells).
just spitballing from here on out. cancer is mostly a disease of old age, so yes, i would say it’s young. it showed up in his triceps, which are probably chronically inflammed to some degree, due to his pitching, meaning he will have more white blood cells showing up there than is normal. it’s plausible to me that this would play some role in development (more immune cells being generated regularly, more chances for a random event like this to happen). i’ve never seen that published though (a connection between chronic inflammation and lymphoma), but then again i’ve never really looked. cancer is complex and all cancers are unique.
GWQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
right, it’s in the skin in this case, but it’s not skin cells.
GWQuote Reply
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17119030
GWQuote Reply
WTF there’s fucking four pink hat guys behind home plate today.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ GW:
I suppose if it was more common in chronically or regularly inflamed tissues, we might see this more in other players though. Or folks with jobs that result in chronic inflammation.
In Kirkman’s case, it seems he had it last year and was treated, and now has a recurrence. No wonder he’s been struggling this year.
SVBQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
Would you prefer fucking four asshat guys behind home plate today?
SVBQuote Reply
SVB wrote:
I doubt it, to be frank. We are talking about a small increase in the degree of risk, if any, in an already rare condition.
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
I guess the sample size you’d need to find a meaningful correlation would be extremely high, plus confounding factors, like working outside (if that is a risk factor) etc etc.
SVBQuote Reply
@ SVB:
yep. working outside, any overlap with arthritis, plus the general low-income type factors: smoking, etc.. probably tough to tease out. and specifically talking about the cutaneous version, i don’t know what the analog would be in “normal jobs.” swinging a hammer won’t give the same localized damage as throwing a baseball, lifting boxes is going to be more systemic (knees, back, elbows)
GWQuote Reply
How many walks does it take the Cubs to score a run?
dmick89Quote Reply
At least the Cubs are getting walks today (dying laughing).
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
BerseliusQuote Reply
What was McCutchen thinking?
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
@ Rizzo the Rat:
He wasn’t, and thanks to Dr. GW for explaining all the cutaneous lymphoma stuff. That’s a hell of a shitty way to land on the DL.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
He thought he had a good jump. Wow.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
@ Rizzo the Rat:
(dying laughing) if he doesn’t know you don’t run in that situation at this point, that’s just pathetic. I knew that when I was a kid.
dmick89Quote Reply
Interesting nugget while reading the MiLB box scores
Mike Olt 2013 AAA – 107PA 40K
Seems like he’d be a natural fit with the Cubs
Chet MastersonQuote Reply
@ Chet Masterson:
he’s been having mysterious vision problems
GWQuote Reply
The Mets have 5 losses in a row to the Marlins. Sounds like heads could be rolling – Ike Davis has already been sent down.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
As shitty as the last 105 years have been, I’m glad I’m not a Mets fan.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ GW:
is that similar to the mysterious mono problems that Hayden Simpson had?
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Well, ordinarily you don’t run in this situation, but this case was special: he thought he had a good jump.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
It is entirely possible that Chipper Jones said something realky stupid on Twitter and I totally missed it.
rice in limboQuote Reply
@ rice in limbo:
Google says it wasn’t as bad as your comment suggested.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ rice in limbo:
FWIW, Chipper has been saying stupid stuff on twitter for months.
BerseliusQuote Reply
New Shit
MylesQuote Reply