Stephen Colouris
The Shredders were in a spot. 3B Antonio Linares went down on June 7th with an injury, a contusion on his right elbow that would cause him to miss a few weeks. No problem, put him on the IL and move Brent Gilbert back to 1B for a few games and Ray Hoskins back to 3B. The defense will suffer a bit for a few days, but the lineup should be fine. Then more bad news, DH Brent Gilbert started experiencing soreness from a back strain. He had tried to play through it, but the pain was getting to be too great and it was decided that Gilbert would make a short trip to the IL. Now what? Austin figured it was time to take a closer look at Stephen Colouris, the slick fielding first baseman from Greece who had been one of the better prospects in the organization but was still just 22. GM Chuck Valenches decided to roll the dice. Luis Rubio had hit lights out in his debut, maybe Colouris could do the same? So Colouris got the call from AA Winnipeg and boarded the first plane to Jacksonville where the Shredders were playing the Jacksonville Zombies.
At first the young 22 year old looked overmatched. He went 0-f-his first 10 AB in the series against the Charm City Jimmies. Colouris was looking at his big league dreams go up in smoke as a prospect that was being moved to the suspect list. Maybe he just wasn't ready. The eight game road trip continued in Rockville and it was there Colouris found his stroke. He managed a pair of hits off of Rockville on the 16th of June, then another hit on the 17th, then came the trumpet announcing Stephen Colouris as a bonefied professional ballplayer. On June the 18th vs Rockville, Couloris got the start and went 3-for-4 with three home runs! The three round trippers tied the team record first set in 2032 by Mario Murillo. Colouris had made his entrance and even though the return of Linares and Antonio Roman from the IL spelled the end of Stephen's cup of coffee, he was going back down to Winnipeg knowing that he could hit big league pitching.