zeke devoss – Page 2 – Obstructed View

JOT: Cubs Minor League Recap 4-18-13

The Iowa Cubs were rained out.

Tennessee Smokies 5 @ Huntsville Stars 3

Kyle Hendricks got the start and lasted only 2 innings. He gave up 5 hits and 3 runs while walking a batter. He didn’t strike out anybody. The Smokies bullpen would throw the next 9 innings (extra innings game) and they allowed only 2 hits and no runs.

Kevin Rhoderick and Marcus Hatley did walk 5 over 3.2 innings and struckout 3, but got away with it because they didn’t allow any hits. Tony Zych, Trey McNutt and Frank Batista threw the remaining 5.1 innings and walked a batter while striking out no one.

Arismendy Alcantara was 3-4 with a walk. Jae-Hoon Ha was 1-4 with 2 walks and Justin Bour was 1-3 with 3 walks. Matt Szczur pinch hit later in the game and ended up going 1-3.

Tampa Yankees 13 @ Daytona Cubs 7

In PJ Francescon’s first start of the season he gave up a hit, walked a batter and struckout 5 over 5 innings. That’s been the only decent start of the year for him. His last two he has combined to give up 16 hits and 13 runs over 8 innings including last night’s 3 inning, 8 hit, 7 run performance.

Eduardo Figueroa threw 3 innings, allowed 3 hits and 2 runs, but walked 4 and struckout only 2. Austin Reed gave up 4 hits, 4 runs and 4 walks over 1.2 innings. Sheldon McDonald threw 1.1, didn’t give up any hits or runs, but walked and struck a batter out.

As a team the Smokies walked 11 and struckout just 7.

Zeke DeVoss was 2-4 with another walk and another time getting picked off. That’s 3 games in a row. That’s got to stop.

Javier Baez was 2-4 with a run scored and a strikeout. Jorge Soler returned to action last night and got a hit and walk in his first 2 plate appearances. He finished 1-3 with a walk.

Stephen Bruno was 2-5 with a double and 3 strikeouts. Ben Carhart was 2-4 with a walk and Chad Noble was 3-4 with a walk.

Quad Cities River Bandits 9 @ Kane County Cougars 8

Lendy Castillo can’t even pitch well in A ball. He pitched 4 innings, gave up 7 hits, a one run, 5 runs in total and walked 2 while striking out 6. Hard to imagine this guy was given a shot at MLB last year.

Justin Amlung gave up 3 hits and 3 runs over 3 innings. Steve Perakslis gave up a couple hits and a run in 2.1 innings.

The top 6 in the Cougars lineup combined for 12 hits and all 8 of the Cougars runs scored.

Gioskar Amaya was 2-5 with 2 doubles. He struckout twice. Marco Hernandez continues to be hot. He was 3-5. Dan Vogelbach was 2-5 with a strikeout. Jeimer Candelario was 2-5 with a double. Rock Shoulders was 1-3 with 2 walks. Willson Contreras was 2-4 with a home run and a walk.

JOT: Cubs Minor League Recap 4-17-13

This is a short Cubs minor league recap seeing as the Iowa Cubs and Kane County Cougars were postponed.

Tennessee Smokies 4 @ Huntsville Stars 1

Eric Jokisch struckout 7 and walked none over 6 innings today. He gave up 3 hits and no runs. The 23-year old left-hander is off to a fantastic start in AA. He's thrown 6 innings in each of his three starts and has not allowed more than 4 hits in any of them. He's thrown a total of 18 innings, allowed only 10 hits, walked just 3 and struckout 17. He's allowed 1 home run.

Jokisch was picked in the 11th round in the 2010 Draft out of Northwestern. His strikeout rate prior to reaching AA had been above 20%, but last year in 105 innings he struckout only 14.9% of the batters. He's had pretty good control over his minor league career and if he can get back to the 20% range where he was before last AA a year ago, he could be a valuable prospect.

Zach Rosscup threw 2 scoreless innings and Brian Schlitter allowed an unearned run in the 9th.

The Smokies only had 6 hits and nobody had more than 1. Arismendy Alcantara was 1-1 with 3 walks. He also stole 4 bases today, which gives him 5 on the season. Alcantara only has 3 extra base hits on the season. Two of them have been home runs and the other a double.

Christian Villanueva was 1-3 with a home run and a walk. Justin Bour was 1-2 with a couple of walks.

Daytona Cubs 13 @ Clearwater Threshers 2

Yao-Lin Wang threw 4 innings, gave up 3 hits and a walk. He allowed a run and struckout 2. Austin Kirk pitched the final 5 innings, striking out 4 and walking 2. He allowed 3 hits and a run (a home run).

Javier Baez had one of the best games of his season so far. He was 3-6 with a home run. He has 3 home runs on the season now and most of his hits have been extra base hits. The problem has been getting balls to fall in, which should change. The other problem has been walks and strikeouts and we saw both today. He struckout only once and didn't walk, but here are the number of walks for the 1, 2, and 4 hitters (Baez batted 3rd): 9.

Zeke DeVoss was 1-2 with a double, stolen base and 3 walks. Taiwan Easterling was 1-3 with a double and 3 walks. John Andreoli was 0-2 with 3 walks. The Smokies had 11 walks today.

DeVoss has 12 walks and 10 strikeouts on the season. He's hitting only .245, but his OBP is an impressive .431 and he's slugging .490 to go with it. He's not going to come anywhere close to maintaining his current .245 ISO, but this guy can get on base. A lot. He's been picked off twice in the last two days so he needs to work on that a little bit.

Dustin Geiger was 3-5 with a double and a home run. SS David Bote was 0-3 with a couple walks.

Here's how well the Daytona Cubs have hit so far (through yesterday).

Player: PA, BB%, wOBA, wRC+
Jorge Soler: 27, 14.8%, .546, 254
Stephen Bruno: 51, 9.8%, .473, 205
John Andreoli: 53, 17.0%, .420, 170
Dustin Geiger: 47, 6.4%, .394, 152
Zeke DeVoss: 60, 15.0%, .392, 151
Micah Gibbs, 33, 15.2%, .364, 133
Chad Noble, 26, 7.7%, .339, 116

Loving those walk rates even if it's this early in the season.

JOT: Cubs Minor League Recap 4-16-13

Cubs Minor League recap

Nashville Sounds 1 @ Iowa Cubs 4

Brooks Raley was very good as he threw 6 innings, allowed 6 hits, no runs or walks and struckout 7. Yoanner Negrin threw 2, allowed 2 hits and no runs, didn't walk anybody or strike anybody out. Cory Wade threw an inning, allowed a couple hits and a run while striking out 2.

Logan Watkins was 0-3 with a walk and run scored. Ty Wright was 1-4 and Ryan Sweeney was 1-3 with a walk. The only other hit went to catcher JC Boscan who was 1-3 with a double.

Tennessee Smokies 4 @ Huntsville Stars 3

Alberto Cabrera walked 2, struckout 5, allowed a home run and 7 hits in 6 innings. He gave up 2 runs. AJ Morris threw 2 clean innings and struckout 3 while Frank Batista pitched an inning and allowed a run, a home run.

Matt Szczur was 2-3 with a home run, stolen base and was picked off. Justin Bour was 2-4 with a home run and so was Rubi Silva, who has been on fire lately.

Daytona Cubs 6 @ Clearwater Threshers 15

The Cubs gave up 27 hits, which made me laugh last night when I saw it. In 8 innings of pitching, they allowed 27 hits and 15 runs. What's even funnier is that they only had 2 extra base hits, both of which were doubles.

Also funny: Ryan Searle gave up 15 hits in 4.2 innings. He didn't walk anybody, struckout 5 and allowed 7 runs. Hunter Cervenka allowed 4 hits and 2 walks in 2 innings. Luis Liria was the star of the night as he pitched a third of an inning, allowed 4 hits and a walk and gave up 4 runs. Taylor Davis pitched an inning, allowed 4 hits and somehow only 1 run.

Zeke DeVoss was 1-4 with a walk and a strikeout. Taiwain Easterling struckout twice and had a hit in 5 plate appearances. Javier Baez hit a home run and struckout 3 times in 5 plate appearances. John Andreoli, Stephen Bruno and Dustin Geiger each added 2 hits of their own. One of Bruno's hits was a double. Bruno also walked twice.

Kane County Cougars 4 @ Beloit Snappers 3

The Cougars have been postponed a few times over the last week and this is the first game of a double header. Those are 7 innings in the minor leagues.

Jose Arias threw 4 innings, allowed 4 hits and 3 runs, all unearned, walked 3 and struckout 3. Jeffry Antigua walked a batter and struckout 3 over 3 innings.

Gioskar Amaya was 2-3 with a walk and Dan Vogelbach was 2-4. Jeimer Candelario, Rock Shoulders and Marco Hernandez each added a hit. Candelario and Hernandez doubled.

Kane County Cougars 3 @ Beloit Snappers 8

Michael Heesch pitched only 1.2 innings in his start and allowed 6 runs on 5 hits and a walk. Brian Smith allowed 2 runs on 3 hits and 2 walks over 2.1 innings. Steve Perakslis and Nathan Dorris pitched an inning each.

Jeimer Candelario and Rock Shoulders were 1-4. Marco Hernandez has his batting average up to .200 after a 2-4 game with a double. Wes Darvill was 2-3 and Bijan Radenmacher was 2-2 with a walk.

Journeymen of Tomorrow: 4-11-13

Iowa Cubs 0 @ Round Rock Express 2

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: 4-10-13

Iowa Cubs 3 @ Round Rock Express 2

The Cubs got their first win of the season behind a decent start from Drew Carpenter. Carpenter pitched 5 innings, allowed 3 hits and walked 2 while striking out 4. He gave up 2 runs, both of which were earned.

Yioannar Negren pitched 2.2 innings and gave up a couple hits, struckout 2 and walked 1 while allowing no runs. Blake Parker got the save as he worked 1.1 innings. He gave up a hit and struckout 2.

RF Ryan Sweeney was 2-5 with a strikeout and 3B Edwin Maysonet was 2-3 with a walk and a strikeout. Logan Watkins was 1-4 with a walk and Brett Jackson’s new swing was 0-3 with a walk and 2 strikeouts.

The Cubs took 6 walks last night. The other two were by Darnell McDonald who was 0-3 with a couple walks.

Chattanooga Lookouts 6 @ Tennessee Smokies

Dallas Beeler threw 6 OK innings. He allowed 6 hits and 2 runs while walking a batter and striking out 3. He also hit 3 batters. Kevin Rhoderick gave up 4 runs in 1.1 innings of work. He allowed 2 hits and 2 walks.

Frank Batista threw the final 1.2 innings and allowed a couple of hits while striking a batter out. Batista is another of the Cubs minor league pitchers who has decent control, but doesn’t strike out nearly enough batters.

The Smokies only had 6 hits so there’s not a lot to write about. CF Rubi Silva collected 2 of those hits in 4 plate appearances. One of the hits was a double. Arismendy Alcantara had a double in 4 plate appearances. Justin Bour walked and homered in 4 plate appearances.

Rafael Lopez and Johermyn Chavez had the other two hits.

Matt Szczur was 0-5 and Christian Villanueva was 0-4.

Clearwater Threshers 14 @ Daytona Cubs 9

Ben Wells did not strike a batter out in 4 innings of work. He walked 4, gave up a home run, allowed 7 hits and somehow only 4 runs scored. I mentioned awhile back that I was very surprised to see Wells at this level. I hope he makes it, but I expect he’ll be dropped to Class A at some point.

Austin Reed gave up 3 runs and recorded only an out. Ryan Searle was about the only decent pitcher for the Cubs last night. He threw 3.2 innings, allowed a hit, walked 1 and struckout 4.

Zeke DeVoss was 2-6 with a home run and 2 strikeouts. It was his 2nd home run of the season already. He was caught stealing the other time he reached base. It was his first of the year against 4 successful steals. I’m loving DeVoss’ 5 walk to 5 strikeout ratio. The power will eventually drop (slugging over .600) since he’s not that kind of hitter, but you’ve got to love what you’ve seen out of him since he signed.

John Andreoli was 3-6 with a double. Javier Baez continues to struggle. He was 0-5 with 3 strikeouts. He did take his 1st walk of the season, which is good. However, he has 1 walk and 11 strikeouts in 28 plate appearances. He’s also committed 4 errors in 6 games.

Dustin Geiger was 1-5 with a home run and a strikeout. He made 3 errors in Monday’s game and when I checked the score of this one early last night, he had already made another error. Stephen Bruno and Ben Carhart were each 2-5. Bruno struckout twice and Carhart doubled.

Taiwan Easterling was also 2-5 and he hit a home run, his first of the season.

Jorge Soler was 1-3 with a walk, strikeout, double and an ejection. There was apparently an incident when he slid into 2nd base during the 7th inning. The benches cleared, but nothing came of it. Then Soler went and grabbed a fucking bat and charged the Threshers dugout. Fucking bat in hand!

Chicago Cubs prospect Jorge Soler was ejected from his Class A team’s game Wednesday night after approaching the opposing team’s dugout wielding a bat following an earlier confrontation on the field.

According to the Daytona Beach News Journal, Soler — the 21-year-old Cuban whom the Cubs signed to a nine-year, $30 million deal last year — slid into second base during the seventh inning of the Florida State League game and had words with an opposing player for the Clearwater Threshers in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Players from both the Threshers and Soler’s Daytona Cubs came out to separate the two, and the sides returned to their dugouts. But according to the News Journal, the 6-foot-4, 215-pound Soler sprinted back out — with bat in hand — toward the Threshers’ side.

Soler was caught by Cubs teammates before he made it to the opposing dugout and never swung the bat, according to the News Journal.

There are some quotes from the manager at the link. I’m going to assume charing the opposing dugout with bat in hand is not in The Cubs Way manual. As such, I think it’s safe to say that Soler is going to have a sit down with some important people. I would also think there would be a suspension coming his way from Minor League Baseball. None of us saw the incident, but I can easily imagine this would be a very stiff penalty for Soler. If it’s not as bad as sounds, it probably won’t be. Baseball tends to look down on players going after an entire dugout, bat in hand.

Clinton LumberKings 10 @ Kane County Cougars 4

Taylor Scott couldn’t get past 2 innings of work after his stellar performance in his debut. He threw 2 innings, allowed 3 hits, walked 5 and struckout nobody. He gave up 4 runs. Nathan Dorris pitched 4 innings, allowed a hit and struckout 5.

Steve Perakslis put the game out of reach in his 2 innings of work. He allowed 5 hits and 5 runs on 2 walks and 3 strikeouts. Bijan Radenmacher walked 3 and struckout nobody in an inning of work.

Rock Shoulders was 2-5 with a strikeout. Nobody else had more than 1 hit. Gioskar Amaya was 0-4. Dan Vogelbach was 1-3 with a walk. Jeimer Candelario was 0-2 with 3 walks and the struggling Marco Hernandez was 0-5.

Journeymen of Tomorrow: 4-9-13

Iowa Cubs 2 @ Round Rock Express 4

The Iowa Cubs are off to a fantastic 0-6 start after losing yet again last night.

Chris Rusin threw 6 innings and allowed 7 hits and 4 runs. He walked 4, hit a batter, allowed a home run and struckout only 2. To give up only 4 runs was rather lucky. In two starts Rusin has walked and struckout 6, allowed 7 runs (6 earned) on 11 hits in 11 IP. He's also hit a batter.

Zach Putnam and Rafael Dolis each threw an inning and allowed a hit. Putnam struck a batter out.

Brett Jackson's new swing was 2-4 with a double and a strikeout. Darnell McDonald was 1-3 with a home run and a walk while Ty Wright was 2-4.

The Cubs had only 7 hits so there's just not a lot to talk about.

Clearwater Threshers 5 @ Daytona Cubs 4

Zach Cates only threw 3.2 innings and allowed 6 hits, but he struckout 7 and didn't walk a single batter. 3 runs ended up scoring, but thanks to 4 Cubs errors, only 1 of them was earned. Cates isn't a strikeout pitcher though. He was acquired along with Anthony Rizzo for Andrew Cashner. Last season he struckout only 46 in 65.1 innings of work.

Eduardo Figueroa pitched 2.2 innings, allowed a hit and walked 2. He gave up 2 runs and struckout 3. Sheldon McDonald also threw 2.2 innings. He didn't allow any runs. He gave up 2 hits, walked 2 and struckout a batter.

Dustin Geiger had a bad night. A really bad night. He was 1-4 at the plate with a strikeout, but committed 3 throwing errors. That's hard to do.

Zeke DeVoss hit his first home run of the season. Tim Saunders was 0-2 with a walk before being replaced by Taiwan Easterling who went 0-1. Not sure what happened to Saunders. If anything.

Javier Baez has been struggling. He was 1-5 with a triple and 2 more strikeouts. He's struckout 8 times in 22 plate appearances and hasn't drawn a walk yet. He's struckout in over 20% of his plate appearances in the minor leagues so far and it increased to 24.4% last year at Daytona. The season is young and the sample size is small, but that's a lot of strikeouts so early in the season. And no walks.

On the other hand, Jorge Soler has struckout only 3 times and has 3 walks so far this year. He's also hit a couple home runs. Soler was 2-4 with a walk and a strikeout last night.

LF John Andreoli was 1-2 with 2 walks. He moved to CF when Easterling replaced Saunders.

Clinton LuMberKinGs 5 @ Kane County Cougars 6

After getting hit awfully hard in his 2013 debut, Pierce Johnson rebounded and had a fairly decent outing. He threw 5 innings, allowed 6 hits and walked 2 while striking out 4 and allowing 2 runs. It's not at all a great outing, but it's much improved over his opening day start.

Jeffry Antigua pitched 3 innings, allowed 4 hits and a run while walking 0 and striking out 1. Eduardo Orozco pitched an inning, didn't allow a hit, but walked a batter who scored (another one scored also) and struckout no one.

CF Oliver Zapata has cooled off. He was 0-5 today with a strikeout and is 0-9 in the last 2 games with a walk and 2 strikeouts. Gioskar Amaya was 2-5 and struckout in every plate appearance he didn't get a hit.

The 2 through 6 hitters in this lineup combined for 11 hits. Along with Amaya's 2-5, Dan Vogelbach was 3-5. Jeimer Candelario was 2-5, Rock Shoulders was 2-3 with a home run (2nd on the season) and a walk.

In the 6th spot, Marco Hernandez was 2-4 with a couple runs scored. We haven't said his name much so far this year. He was 1-18 with 3 strikeouts prior to today's game. He also had a stolen base today.

RF Bijan Radenmacher was 2-3 with a double and a walk. After an 0-9 start, he's 5 for his last 10 with a walk.

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.

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Iowa Cubs

Brett Jackson was 1-4 and struckout twice. He has an astronomical 33.8% strikeout rate, but is still managing a wOBA near .370, which is good for a wRC+ of 113. It's not as good as his stint in Iowa last year, but it's still above average. Josh Vitters was 1-3 with a walk and is now sporting a wRC+ higher than jackson (117). His walk rate is nearly 6% too. Randy Wells tossed 5 innings, allowed a few hits and a run, walked a couple and struckout 4.

Tennessee Smokies

Trey McNutt must have fallen off a very large cliff becuase he's not yet landed. He pitched 4 innings, allowed 7 hits, walked 3, struckout 4, but I guess he did manage to allow only 2 runs. Great start, kid! McNutt is walking quite a few guys this year, not striking many out at all and generally getting hit pretty hard. Logan Watkins was 2-5 with a triple and Michael Burgess was 2-4 with his very own triple. The bullpen sucked.

Daytona Cubs

Rubi Silva was 3-5 with a triple and Rebel Ridling was 2-4 with a double. Matt Szczur was 0-3 with a couple walks. Szczur is batting .285/.387/.404. Prior to last night's game his wOBA sat at a cool .380 in the pitcher friendly FSL. That's good for a wRC+ of 136. The guy knows how to walk. He's taken 35 walks in 271 plate appearances and he's been hit 4 times. That's 14.4% of his plate appearances ending in a walk or hit batter. You gotta like that for a future leadoff guy.

Peoria Chiefs

The Chiefs offense pounded out 3 hits, 2 of which were doubles, in last night's 4-1 slugfest. Zeke DeVoss was 0-4 with a strikeout and Taiwan Easterling was an impressive 0-4 with 4 strikeouts. Easterling had a 24.6% strikeout rate prior to last night's game so it's only getting uglier. Joseph Zeller walked 1 and struckout 1 over 5 innings of work. Hunter Cervenka struckout 4 in 3 innings.

Boise Hawks

Jeimer Candelario was 2-3 with a walk. Shawon Dunston, Jr.'s first taste of professional ball isn't going well. He was 0-4 with a couple strikeouts last night and is now hitting .204/.283/.333. Ian Dickson pitched an inning in relief last night, except it wasn't an inning in relief. He was the starter and lasted 1 inning, allowed way too many hits and runs and stuff like that. Rafael Diplan threw 3 innings and allowed only 1 hit.

AZL Cubs

Dan Vogelbach was 1-5 with a strikeout last night. Izaac Garsez was 4-5 with a home run. Carlos Martinez-Pumarino was even worse than Ian Dickson. He lasted only a third of an inning and gave up lots of stuff you don't want pitchers giving up. Alvido Jimenez threw 3.2 innings, allowed a hit and a walk and struckout 3.

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Iowa

Another day another Anthony Rizzo HR. He decided to pair his 13th shot of the year with a triple and kept his average at .359. Brett Jackson on the other hand is really scuffling right now as he slipped down to .226 after another 0-4 day. Randy Wells got shelled and has a 7 + ERA right now. He is also getting paid some 2 million dollars to do so. Some people noticed Gioskar Amaya got promoted from instructs straight to AAA but he is just filling a bench spot while the club waits to see if DeWitt will accept assignment to Iowa. Amaya got his first AB as a PH and promptly doubled.

Smokies

Junior Lake continues to hit going 3-5 with 3 RBI's in the 10-8 win. Justin Bour went 2-4 with his 6th home run of the year and Alberto Cabrera earned the save.

Daytona

Rain Out

Peoria

Hey look, its a Geraldo Concepcion start where he didn't totally suck! Concepcion worked 6 scoreless innings walking 3 and striking out 3. Ben Wells followed with three shutout innings of his own and Zeke DeVoss tied the Peoria franchise record with 4 stolen bases in one game. DeVoss had 4 at bats and got a pair of hits go with a pair of walks.