After one week when three pitchers have been moved around, the Valencia Stars were able to snap a 5-game losing streak to go 4-3 last week including taking 2 out of 3 from the visiting Portland Lumberjacks.
Peter Dean turned in his second straight strong outing in a 2-1 victory over Vancouver. Although Dean allowed 11 baserunners, he only allowed one run in 5.2 innings of work.
Meanwhile the guy that Dean replaced, Xavier Vargas, had two relief appearances this past week where he worked a total of 5 innings giving up 1 run on 4 hits and walking none during the Portland series.
The third change was putting Tomas Franco in the middle relief portion of the bullpen instead of long relief to get him some more quality innings. The Rule 5 pickup responded by going 4.1 innings allowing no runs and 2 baserunners in his last two outings.
While this trend isn’t likely to continue at this pace, it is a welcome relief to the Valencia faithful after enduring the last half of April.