brian bogusevic – Page 2 – Obstructed View

Journeymen of Tomorrow: 4-11-13

In Brooks Raley’s first start of the season he allowed a bunch of hits, didn’t strike many out and walked nearly as many as he struckout. Last night he went 7 innings, allowed 8 hits and 2 runs. He struckout 7 and walked 0. Raley might prove to be valuable in the bullpen, but as a starter, he leaves a lot to be desired. He’s good depth, I guess, but his career strikeout rate is only 13.8% and he’s walked 9.5% of the batters.

Jensen Lewis pitched an inning and allowed a hit.

The Cubs had 3 hits and 0 runs so this will be easy. Brett Jackson’s new swing was 1-3 with a walk and an obligatory strikeout. RF Ryan Sweeney was 1-4 with a strikeout. Ty Wright was 1-3 with a strikeout. Donnie Murphy and Brian Bogusevic each walked once.

The I-Cubs are now a healthy 1-7.

Chattanooga Lookouts 6 @ Tennessee Smokies 3

Alberto Cabrera struckout 5, walked 2 and allowed a home run over 6 innings of work. He surrendered 8 hits and 4 runs, all of which were earned. Marcus Hatley threw 2 innings, allowed 3 hits and a couple of runs while walking 1 and striking out 3. The 9th inning was worked by Brian Schlitter who allowed a hit and struck a batter out.

Catcher Jair Fernandez was 2-4 with an RBI. Fernandez is 26 years old and the best he can say about his career is that he was traded for RA Dickey back in 2008. That was before Dickey was very good.

SS Jonathon Mota was 0-2 with 2 walks. Matt Szczur has been slumping the last few games. He was 0-4. Arismendy Alcantar was 1-3 with a walk. Alcantara also had his 2nd stolen base of the season.

The Smokies didn't do much offensively (5 hits, 4 walks). Christian Villanueva had the team's only extra base hit, a double. He was 1-4 with a strikeout.

The Smokies are now 2-5.

Clearwater Threshers 12 @ Daytona Cubs 2

Starling Peralta had 7 strikeouts and no walks. Great start, right? Wrong. He allowed 4 home runs, which will pretty much ruin any strikeout to walk ratio. He also allowed 8 hits and 6 runs.

No worries, Yeiper Castillo also gave up 6 runs, but in only 3 innings of work and without the help of a home run. He gave up 7 hits, walked 1 and struckout 1.

Taiwan Easterling was 2-4 with a double and 2 strikeouts. He’s 4 for his last 9 with a home run and a double.

Stephen Bruno, Dustin Geiger and C Chad Noble were also each 2-4. Bruno and Geiger doubled.

John Andreoli and Zeke DeVoss took the team’s only walks.

Javier Baez was 0-4 with another strikeout. He has 4 hits on the season, and when he gets them he’s hitting them pretty hard. Of the 4, 3 have been for extra bases. Nobody is going to have 75% of their base hits be extra base hits over a long period and Baez has to make some improvements. He’s been miserable ever since he reached High A Daytona near the end of last season.

He’s struckout at least once in each of the Cubs 7 games so far this year. He has 33 strikeouts to 6 walks in 115 High A plate appearances. It’s only 115 plate appearances, but so far this year those numbers are worse than a year ago. He’s also made 4 errors already.

Kane County Cougars @ Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

Postponed

Journeymen of Tomorrow: 4-5-13

Iowa Cubs 6 @ Alburquerque Isotopes 10

The Iowa Cubs were first in the Cubs organization in 2013 to score more than 3 runs in a game. It's not like they've played that many games (8th game), but it's still nice to see some offense.

Drew Carpenter got the start for the Cubs and wasn't good. He gave up 6 hits and 5 runs in 4 innings of work. He struckout only 1 and walked 3. He also allowed a home run. The 2006 2nd round pick, Carpenter has been up to the big leagues each season since 2008, but has only thrown more than 10 innings once (14.2 between the Phillies and Padres in 2011). He's shown pretty good control at the minor league level, but not so good at the MLB level.

Jaye Chapman and Cory Wade gave up 7 hits in 1.2 innings, along with a walk, but only allowed 3 runs. Brooks Raley served as a pinch hitter. That has me curious. Isn't there anybody else on their bench who is a better hitter than Brooks Raley?

Brad Nelson has started both games at 3rd base so far since Josh Vitters is currently day to day. So maybe they don’t.

Blake Parker finished the game for Iowa allowing 2 hits, a walk, 2 runs and he struck out 3 in 1.2 innings.

Logan Watkins was 3-3 with a couple walks and 2 runs scored. He had two singles and a triple. Brian Bogusevic continued his fine start to Iowa Cubs season. He also added a couple of walks and was 2-3 at the plate.

Brad Nelson hit two homeruns. He also added a walk in 5 plate appearances and drove in 3 runs.

Brett Jackson’s new swing was 0-5 and struck out twice. He’s now struck out 4 times in 10 plate appearances on the season.

Tennessee Smokies 8 @ Pensacola Blue Wahoos 2

The Cubs moved 24 year old Alberto Cabrera to relief at the start of last season. He hadn’t been particularly impressive as a starter. He wasn’t terrible, but he wasn’t very good. As a reliever he struckout a ton and walked few on his way through Tennessee, Iowa and then stalled a bit in the big leagues. The Cubs have moved him back to the rotation this year and to do so they’re getting him stretched out at Tennessee. He had a great night. He allowed 4 hits and 2 runs in 6 innings, but struckout 9 and didn’t walk anybody.

Zach Rosscup struckout 5 in 2 innings and Trey McNutt threw a scoreless 9th.

Jae-Hoon Ha and Christian Villanueva had big nights at the plate for Tennessee. Each was 3-5 with a double. Combined, they accounted for half of the Smokies 12 hits.

Matt Szczur was 1-4 with a walk and Arismendy Alcantara was 1-5 with a couple strikeouts.

Daytona Cubs 8 @ Brevard County Manatees 0

Starling Peralta had a pretty good night tonight as he threw 4 innings allowed only 1 hit no runs. He walked 3 and struck out 5.

Ryan Searle was outstanding in relief. He threw 5 innings, allowed only 2 hits, and struck out 6.

Daytona pounded out 15 hits and walked 7 times. They surprisingly only scored 8 runs though. Tim Saunders, Stephen Bruno and Dustin Geiger were without a hit, but all of them added a walk. Geiger actually walked twice.

Centerfielder Zeke DeVoss had a single, double, triple and a walk in 5 plate appearances. Javier Baez homered in this first plate appearance and later doubled in 5 plate appearances. He struck out twice.

Jorge Soler was 1–5 and John Andreoli was 3-4 with a walk. Catcher Chad Noble was 2-4 with a walk.

Quad Cities River Dogs 4 @ Kane County Cougars 1

Taylor Scott also had a good night on the mound. He threw 6 innings, allowed 4 hits and a run (unearned). He struckout 6 and didn’t walk anyone. Scott was drafted in the 5th round of the 2011 draft out of high school. He barely pitched that season, but joined Boise when their season began. He had a very good ERA over 71.1 innings, but his strikeout to walk ratio was just 43 to 29. Solid control, but he’s going to have to strikeout a lot more than that to be of much value as a starter. Good start to his season.

Jeffry Antigua relieved Scott and pitched the final 3 innings of the game. He allowed 3 hits, 2 walks and 3 runs while striking out 2.

Catcher Chadd Krist and 2B Wes Darvill collected 5 of the 10 Cougars hits. Krist was 2-3 with a walk and Darvill was 3-4 with a double.

Prospects Marco Hernandez and Jeimer Candelario were each 1-4 while Dan Vogelbach was 0-4.

Journeymen of Tomorrow 4/4/13

The minor league season is officially underway. All four full season affiliates began their season on Thursday. I would think these updates would evolve as the season goes on. I’d really like to highlight players we don’t typically consider prospects, as well as covering the prospects we all know about. My intention is to let the first part of that develop so as the season goes along and the performance accumulates, then it will be a good time to do that.

I don’t know about the rest of the you, but I couldn’t really care if the Iowa Cubs won or lost. We follow the minor leagues to get an idea how the players are doing. Those players, any of them really, who could wind up at the big league level helping the team in games we actually care about.

I’m not sure how Myles will do these on the weekend and hopefully they’re a bit different than mine. My plan isn’t to tell you who won or lost. I’ll provide the box score from milb.com and even the score, but I’m not going to talk about that inning the Tennessee Smokies let the game get away after they led off the inning with a single, infield hit and walk.

On Thursday, the Cubs minor league teams scored only 11 runs combined. If you add in the MLB team, the 5 teams scored a combined 14 runs. Four of them scored 3 and another 2. Only the Chicago Cubs won their game.

Iowa Cubs 3 @ Alburquerque Isotopes 10

The PCL is back. The league that’s sure to provide you some high scoring games did that on Opening Night. Even though the Cubs scored only 3 runs, both teams had 11 hits.

Cubs starter Chris Rusin was even decent. He threw 5 innings, allowed 3 runs, only 2 of which were earned, walked a couple and struckout 4. Casey Coleman and Rafael Dolis would throw a scoreless 6th and 8th inning, but they had trouble getting any Isotope out in the 7th.

Jensen Lewis recorded an out and gave up 4 hits and 5 runs. Zach Putnam finished the inning and allowed 2 more runs on 3 hits.

Brian Bogusevic (1B) had the best night among the hitters as he collected 3 hits, all doubles, in 5 plate appearances. Ty Wright (LF) and J.C. Boscan (C) were each 2-4.

Logan Watkins (2B) batted at the top of the order and was 1-5 with 3 strikeouts. Brett Jackson’s new swing went 1-4 with an HBP and 2 strikeouts. Brad Nelson (3B) added a couple walks in 4 plate appearances.

Tennessee Smokies 3 @ Pensacola Blue Wahoos 7

The Smokies allowed 4 home runs in 8 innings pitched. Starter Dallas Beeler gave up 3 of them in 5.1 innings. He also allowed 7 hits, struckout 5 and walked 1. Beeler also hit 2 batters. You won’t win many games when you give up that many baserunners and that many home runs.

A.J. Morris pitched 1.2 innings and allowed a hit, a home run, struckout 2 and walked 1. Tony Zych finished the game. He allowed 2 hits and 2 runs, neither of them earned, in an inning of work.

Matt Szczur was in LF and Jae Hoon Ha in CF. I guess I had expected Szczur to play CF and Ha in RF. Both of these players will have to stick in CF if they’re to have much value to the Cubs down the road.

Szczur got off to a fast start. He was 3-4 with a run scored. Arismendy Alcantara (SS) was 2-3 with a walk and a home run.

The middle of the Smokies lineup (3-6) combined to go 0-16 with 4 strikeouts. Jae Hoon Ha, Justin Bour (1B), Christian Villanueva (3B) and Rafael Lopez (C) were each 0-4 with a strikeout. Johermyn Chavez (RF) added the only other Cubs hit.

Brevard County Manatees 4 @ Daytona Cubs 3

Groundballer Ben Wells got the start for the Cubs and pitched pretty well in his debut. He’s young for the level. He lasted just 4 innings and if you look at the hits or runs allowed you might not think it was so hot. He gave up 7 hits and 2 runs scored, but more importantly than either of those, he struckout 4 and walked no one. If you could only know two things about a pitcher’s performance, you’d want to know his walks and strikeouts. Those are about as good as it gets in terms of predicting future success. Not that 4 innings will do anything like that, but it was a pretty good debut.

He was relieved by Sheldon McDonald who threw 2.2 innings, allowed 3 hits and a couple runs while striking out 3 and walking 1. Eduardo Figueroa threw 2.1 scoreless.

Zeke DeVoss led off and played CF for the Cubs. He was 1-3 with a walk and a strikeout. Tim Saunders doubled in a run and scored one himself in 4 plate appearances while Javier Baez was 0-3 with a sac fly. Jorge Soler singled twice in 4 plate appearances. Stephen Bruno (2B) and John Andreoli (LF) collected the only other two Cubs hits.

Soler was was also picked off 1st base.

Quad City River Bandits 7 @ Kane County Cougars 2

It’s a little more difficult to argue Pierce Johnson had a good night than it might have been for Ben Wells. While Johnson struckout 4 and walked 1 in his full season debut, he also gave up 6 hits and 5 runs in 2.1 innings. He kept the ball in the yard and the 1st rounder will have many more starts this season.

Johnson was relieved by Justin Amlung who threw 2.2 innings, allowed a run on 2 hits, walked 2 and struckout 2. Brian Smith struckout 4 in 2 innings while walking 2 and allowing a run.

Rock Shoulders hit a 2-run home run and struckout twice in 4 plate appearances. He drove in the only runs of the game for the Cougars who had only 5 hits on the night.

Pin-Chieh Chen and Gioskar Amaya combined to go 0-8 out of the top two spots in the order. Dan Vogelbach batted 3rd and went 2-4 (both singles). Jeimer Candelario was 1-3 with a walk and Willson Contreras was 1-2 and was hit by a pitch.