Sim #19 review
Another week of .500 baseball for Louisville but the rare sight of not only two shutouts by the Sluggers but both pitched by the same man, Doug Clement. At the start of the sim week Clement posted his 10th win by going the distance at Las Vegas and getting a 6-0 win which completed a 3-1 series win there. At the end of the week he went 8.1 innings in Waterfront Park to post his 11th win and Carlos Rosa got the last two outs in a 3-0 shutout. The Atlantic City series didn’t exactly go to plan as first four multi-run homers surrendered by Rogerio Vazquez put the opener to bed as Sluggers went down 0-10. Namesake Ken Vazquez then started for the third time this year and allowed three more homers on the way to a 5-8 defeat. Luckily Kevin Morales was on top form to post a 4-1 win in the finale of the series. The opening two of the New Orleans were both pitchers’ duels, just 10 hits in the first game as Crawdads won 2-0 and 12 hits as Clement took the second.
Pedro becomes the seventh rookie on the Louisville 25-man squad
Yet another rookie got his call-up as Pedro Debesa made the jump from Double-A Alabama to BBA first base replacing the departed Fernando Cruz, he got four starts and played solid defence. He had two hits, both extra base hits, as he had a double and a solo homer for his first BBA RBI. He also walked once and struckout twice. Five different players hit a homer in a generally poor offensive week, only three players hit over .250. Sean Maguire was the most productive, driving in five runs and scoring four times, Vince Osborn also drove in three. Shag Hopkins broke two bats in frustration as he went 0-16 on the week and he’s now mired in a 2-33 slump over his last 11 games. Brian Clough added four more hits bringing his BBA career total to 2,987 in 2,453 games while at the other end of the scale rookie defensive replacement Javier Tavarez failed to make any of his three AB’s count and remains on two hits from his first 12 BBA games, he is virtually half Clough’s age though.
Doug Clement has been getting better all season and in his two starts he pitched 17.1 innings, allowed nine hits and walked three, struck out nine and didn’t allow any runs. Top of the rotation guys Kevin Morales and Pepe Jaramillo both had WHIP’s under 1.00 (0.56 & 0.86 respectively). Carlos Rosa has quietly built up a streak of 15 games where the only runs he has conceded was two against Brooklyn at the end of July, in the same time he has a 22/5 K/BB ratio. Pitchers 28-yr-old Mike Singleton and 24-yr-old Julio Barajas were called up from Missouri to replace the departed pitchers
Ken Vazquez’s loss took his record to 0-5 as the franchise shipped the 30-yr-old to Madison along with 21-yr-old prospect John Dundee for 23-yr-old pitcher Dylan Schmidt and 21-yr-old CF Phil Dand. Backup bench man George Lee Anderson V also played his last games for Louisville as he headed to join former GM Hopkins in Wichita in exchange for 21-yr-old shortstop Otis Dillon, 21-yr-old 2B Ricardo Tavares and if Anderson resigns with Wichita 20-yr-old Yoshitake Saikawa will become a permanent member of the franchise.
Back to work for Joey with a pinch-hit RBI
In injury News, top shortstop prospect 18-yr-old Joey O’Brien was activated from the DL where he had spent the last three months with severe hip strain; in his first AB back as a pinch-hitter he drove in a run to raise his total to 22 RBI this season. That matched last year’s total in exactly half the games at a level higher.