Finally, a day off for some of the teams. On today’s schedule:
MODESTO (7-11) at HIGH DESERT (8-10)
STOCKTON (7-11) at BAKERSFIELD (10-8)
These will be three-game series in both cases, with the off day Thursday for the four teams involved.
After yesterday’s games, the Visalia Rawhide at 14-4 hold a four-game lead over Bakersfield in the North and Lancaster and Rancho Cucamonga are tied at 10-8, both one game ahead of Inland Empire in the South.
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Posted in CAL LEAGUE NEWS
Tagged Bakersfield Blaze, High Desert Mavericks, Modesto Nuts, Stockton Ports
The Visalia Rawhide improved to 14-3 with a hard-fought 4-0 win over Stockton on Saturday night. The win maintained the four-game lead for Visalia over second-place Bakersfield, who also won. It was the seventh-straight victory for the Rawhide.
Meanwhile, the South division got crowded at the top with a Lancaster win and a Rancho Cucamonga loss that knotted them up with identical 10-7 records. And Inland Empire sits just a half-game back on the heels of having their game with High Desert suspended due to rain.
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Posted in CAL LEAGUE NEWS
Tagged Daniel Gibson, Dylan Covey, High Desert Mavericks, inland Empire 66ers, Modesto Nuts, Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, Silvio Bracho, Stockton Ports, Visalia Rawhide, Zack Godley
Man, I’m off to a slow start for this California League season. I’ve got excuses all over the place but if I was trying to win a job, I got sent down. Or released. Let’s talk California League baseball.
RAWHIDE AND QUAKES OUT FAST
Eight of the 10 Cal League teams are either 9-7 or 6-10, as can be expected in a 10-team league this early. But the Visalia Rawhide have jumped out to a 13-3 mark to pace the North while the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes have stepped up just slightly in the South at 10-6. Rancho’s lost three of its last four and has a tenuous 1-game lead on Inland Empire and Lancaster.
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Posted in CAL LEAGUE NEWS
Tagged Bakersfield Blaze, Dylan Covey, Luis Ysla, Michael Benjamin, Modesto Nuts, Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, Ryan Yarbrough, San Jose Giants, Stockton Ports, Visalia Rawhide, Zack Godley
News and notes from around the web
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Posted in CAL LEAGUE NEWS
Tagged Brett Phillips, High Desert Mavericks, Keury Mella, Lancaster Jethawks, Modesto Nuts, Richelson Pena, San Jose Giants, Todd Glaesmann, Tyler Beede, Visalia Rawhide
(Updated, all teams’ announcements/rosters)
Here are more roster announcements from the various Cal League pages. Opening Night is tomorrow with the first scheduled game in Lancaster as the Jethawks host the San Jose Giants at 6:30PM. The rest of the teams face off later that evening.
BAKERSFIELD BLAZE (Mariners)
INLAND EMPIRE 66ers (Angels)
LAKE ELSINORE STORM (Padres)
LANCASTER JETHAWKS (Astros)
MODESTO NUTS (Rockies)
RANCHO CUCAMONGA QUAKES (Dodgers)
SAN JOSE GIANTS (Giants)
STOCKTON PORTS (Athletics)
VISALIA RAWHIDE (Diamondbacks)
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Posted in CAL LEAGUE NEWS
Tagged California League, inland Empire 66ers, Lake Elsinore Storm, Modesto Nuts, Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, San Jose Giants, Visalia Rawhide
Photo: MiLB.com
Matt Flemer threw a four-hit shutout against Stockton to post his 13th win, second most in the Cal League. The right-hander from Cal stuck out nine and didn’t walk anybody in the season finale. It was a rough year for Modesto in the standings, but Flemer provided consistency over his 165 innings pitched. In each of his last four outings he went at least seven innings, walking just two and striking out 30 while going 3-1.
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Posted in CAL LEAGUE NEWS
Tagged California League, Matt Flemer, Modesto Nuts
Photo: Steve Cummings/CalLeagueHeat.com
Stockton’s Matt Olson and Modesto’s David Dahl are part of David Laurila’s SUNDAY NOTES piece tonight on Fangraphs.com. Olson leads the Cal League in homers with 37 and has walked a lofty 117 times, which pushes is OBP to .405. He checks in as the Oakland A’s #2 prospect by MLB.com’s rankings.
Dahl is the #10 overall pick from the 2012 draft and he slashed .302/.341/.496 for the lo-A Asheville Tourists in 89 games this season. Dahl played 29 games in Modesto before heading back to Asheville this week. Laurila’s piece has several quotes from the Alabama native.
FanGraphs.com is an invaluable resource of analytical baseball features. The way to look at this game is up to the consumer. You can take a nostalgic view (none of these guys can carry Mantle’s jock) and you can go strictly by the number-crunching ideology (WAR, etc.) Fangraphs asks pertinent questions, researches appropriately to get to answers, and does it all with an approach that would be enjoyable if you had the conversation with its writers in the bleachers. You can take a break to grab a soda mid-article. Watch an AB. The intelligent baseball discourse is always there. My favorite site, as you can tell.
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Posted in CAL LEAGUE NEWS
Tagged David Dahl, Matt Olson, Modesto Nuts, Stockton Ports
Saturday night I made it up to Stockton to see the Ports host the Modesto Nuts, a matchup of teams at the opposite ends of the North division standings. The game was a one-sided affair, with the first-place Stockton club swinging hot bats while starter Jake Sanchez went seven strong innings to lead the Ports to a 13-1 win.
It’s always good to see a game at Banner Island Ballpark and on this visit the weather was perfect for a night of California League baseball. The crowd didn’t look to be as big as the announced 3,012, and it was smaller than my previous trips there. But the home team didn’t disappoint as they raced to an easy win.
The Stockton club has Oakland’s top three prospects on its roster, SS Daniel Robertson, 1B Matt Olson and 3B Renato Nunez, as well as #18 (Ryon Healy) and #20 (Jaycob Brugman). It’s a pretty potent offense for the Ports and the club banged out a season-high 20 hits while putting up the 13 runs. The 1-2-3 hitters, Robertson, Healy and Olson, combined to go 10-for-15 with six RBIs and six runs scored.
As if that wasn’t enough, C Beau Taylor went 4-for-5 with a double, a homer and four RBIs. And the bottom of the order came through as well. The No. 8 and No. 9 hitters, 2B Wade Kirkland and CF Zeke DeVoss, went a combined 4-for-8 with five runs scored.
It made for a rough night for Modesto’s pitchers. Starter Ben Alsup went 4 1/3 and allowed 10 hits and six earned runs. The relief corp didn’t fare much better as Shayne Broyles, Alving Mejias and Peter Tago allowed seven more runs to score, six of them earned.
With Stockton’s offense in high gear, starter Jake Sanchez allowed just one earned run while walking one and striking out 12 over seven innings. He pitched out of danger in the first, allowing a single and a walk and throwing two wild pitches before stranding runners at second and third.
Then he allowed a solo homer to the Nuts’ Dean Espy in the second inning that made it a 2-1 ballgame. But the next 11 Modesto batters went down in order and the Ports started pulling away. A three-run fourth inning for Stockton was the beginning of five-straight innings of scoring while the Nuts never again dented the scoreboard.
For the Nuts, the top three hitters in the batting order had one hit apiece in addition to Espy’s homer, and that was it for the offense. Stockton earned its 70th win of the season, overall, while Modesto lost for the 84th time.
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A walk around Banner Island Ballpark is as enjoyable as any other Cal League park, with the right-field grass area sitting in front of the beautiful river setting. Stockton’s baseball past is on display with a giant banner on the first-base side showing four recent players who have gone “from Stockton to Oakland.” There is also a listing of all former Stockton players to make the majors in the concourse under the main grandstand.
There looks to be more on the way from this current roster. Olson (34) and Nunez (29) are the top two homerun hitters in the league while Olson has a .401 OBP and has drawn 101 walks. Robertson took over the position of the organization’s top overall prospect when SS Addison Russell was dealt to the Cubs last month in the trade that brought Jeff Samardzija to the A’s. So there appears to be plenty of talent still in the pipeline.
All photos: Steve Cummings/CalLeagueHeat.com
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Posted in CAL LEAGUE NEWS, ROAD TRIPS
Tagged Beau Taylor, Daniel Robertson, Matt Olson, Modesto Nuts, Renato Nunez, Ryon Healy, Stockton Ports
Trevor Story played for Modesto in 2013 and got off to a rough start before making some adjustments at the plate to have a better second half. This year, the Irving, TX native is one of the leading hitters in the California League, checking in after Wednesday night’s action with a line of .336/.440/.566. That’s the kind of ability the Colorado Rockies saw when they drafted Story 45th overall in 2011.
Baseball America and MLB.com both have Story ranked as Colorado’s #9 prospect. He is playing both shortstop and 3B this season as the Rockies have another prospect in Rosell Herrera who also plays shortstop. The two were teammates at both Casper and Asheville and Story has played either position as assigned while climbing the minor league ladder.
I spoke with Story about his hot start to 2014 and a few other things before a recent home game at John Thurman Field:
YOU’RE OFF TO A GREAT START THIS YEAR AT THE PLATE. LAST YEAR YOU PLAYED AT THIS LEVEL AND STARTED SLOWLY. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO START SO FAST?
My hitting coach and I got together in the offseason and got back to what I have always done my whole life. We focused on what I did well and tried to attack that. Also, attack my weaknesses too, like chasing pitches. Really refined my approach to hit the pitches that I should hit and to not be chasing pitches.
BETTER PLATE DISCIPLINE?
Yeah, definitely.
AFTER LAST SEASON DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE BACK IN MODESTO?
I wasn’t sure.
WHEN DOES THE ORGANIZATION GIVE YOU YOUR ASSIGNMENT FOR THE COMING SEASON?
I didn’t know for sure I was coming back, and I think it’s different with every organization. For us we don’t really find out until the last week of Spring Training. It’s a guessing game. You can pretty much tell where you’re going.
DO YOU HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO GET PROMOTED TO THE NEXT LEVEL?
I really don’t. The way I approach it is just to go from day to day. I can’t put pressure on myself to advance levels or anything because that might have been something I was doing last year. Nothing good comes out of worrying about moving up.
WHEN YOU SEE YOURSELF RANKED ON THE VARIOUS PROSPECT LISTS, DOES THAT PUT ANY PRESSURE ON YOU?
No, it doesn’t. Pretty much my whole career I’ve been dealing with expectations with stuff like that and nobody’s expectations are higher than mine so I don’t feel any extra pressure from that.
WHEN YOU GO TO SPRING TRAINING, ARE YOU ABLE TO WORK WITH TULO WHILE YOU’RE THERE?
At Spring Training it is separated into major league and minor league, but if we have time I’ll ask him if he wants to come out and do some drills, and I’ll try to pick his brain because he’s one of the best fielding shortstops and offensive shortstops. So I like to pick his brain. If we both have some down time that is when we get together.
YOU HIT FOR THE CYCLE EARLIER THIS SEASON IN VISALIA. HAD YOU EVER DONE THAT BEFORE?
No, that was my first one. I started realizing that it could happen when I hit the double and I knew I just needed the triple and I just went up there and had the same approach I had all game and just tried to hit the ball hard. I hit it in the gap and right off the bat I pretty much knew I was going to third.
SO, EVERYBODY IN THE DUGOUT KNEW AND YOU WALKED UP TO THE PLATE FOR THAT AB KNOWING YOU NEEDED A TRIPLE?
Yeah. I’m pretty sure the other guys knew about it because they were pretty pumped when I did it. It’s kind of like somebody throwing a no-hitter, they’re not going to come up to you and talk to you about it.
YOU HAD GONE A COUPLE OF GAMES WITHOUT A HIT AND IT SEEMED LIKE THAT GOT YOU GOING BECAUSE YOU’VE BEEN HITTING WELL EVER SINCE.
I’m not sure, that was a while ago. I just remember we played Visalia and after I hit for the cycle I started getting pretty hot.
THE TEAM WAS IN THE PLAYOFFS LAST YEAR BUT YOU’RE OFF TO A SLOW START THIS YEAR. HOW TOUGH IS IT TO BE ON A TEAM THAT IS NOT WINNING, REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU’RE DOING PERSONALLY?
It’s tough when you get off to the start that we have. It wasn’t ideal, but I really believe we’re starting to come around and we’re starting to have a better feel for things team chemistry-wise. Offensive rhythm and putting up good stat lines as pitchers, keeping us in ballgames. It’s no fun to lose and being the types of competitors that we are, that’s the one thing we want to do, win.
All Photos: Steve Cummings/CalLeagueHeat.com
Photo: MiLB.com
PITCHER OF THE WEEK – JOE ROSS, RHP, LAKE ELSINORE
Joe Ross of Lake Elsinore went six shutout innings against Visalia with no walks and nine strikeouts to get the Pitcher of the Week award. Ross is ranked by Baseball America as the Padres’ #10 prospect and he finished the week third in the Cal League with a 1.95 ERA. The outing against Visalia was Ross’ third shutout performance of the season.
Photo: MiLB.com
OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK – CHRIS O’DOWD, C, MOSESTO
O’Dowd was red-hot for the Nuts last week, going 14-for-26 with a batting line of .538/.552/.808. He had multi-hit games in every contest last week except for one and belted out a 4-hit game and a 3-hit game as well as a 4-RBI night. In a four-game series with San Jose, O’Dowd went 9-for-16.
MiLB.com’s PITCHERS OF THE WEEK
MiLB.com’s OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
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Posted in CAL LEAGUE NEWS
Tagged Chris O'Dowd, Joe Ross, Lake Elsinore Storm, Modesto Nuts
