The Tampa Yankees seem to be in a slump. Maybe "seem to be" is too kind. They are definitely slumping. They are currently on an 8 game losing streak and don't seem to be getting out of it anytime soon. As I posted yesterday, they have been unfortunate in their schedule because they have had to play the top two teams in the FSL North for the past 12 games. The Daytona Cubs who they were just swept by this morning is hitting over .280 and their pitchers are pitching to a less than 2.80 ERA. They have several players who are doing better than many Major Leaguers in many categories. The Tampa Yankees on the other hand are hitting under .249 and have a team ERA of over 5.30. They play the Lakeland Flying Tigers for the next 3 games so maybe they will be able to catch a break and finally win one.
Onto my recap of last nights game. I was told on Tuesday night that Carlos Silva was going to pitch in Wednesday's game by one of the pitchers on the team. I wanted to go anyway since their game today was a morning game and they aren't home again until Saturday. I also had the day off and I wanted my 10th game stamp(even though I have been to 11) I belong to the RBI Rewards program which gets you rewards obviously for attending games. For the 10th game you attend you get 5 dollars in T-Bucks to spend at the concession stand or team store and a TY hat. I have a million of those hats and I don't wear them. I also found out that they sell player bats at Costumer Service. I don't ever plan on using one but if a good one comes available(David Adams bat was for sale yesterday) it would be neat to have.
The game started out promising enough....for the Cubs. The first batter Silva faced, Junior Lake, the Cubs 27th best prospect according to Baseball America, hit a Triple on the first pitch of the game. One out later the Cubs 28th best prospect hit a home run over the right field fence. Only his 5th home run of the season. Just before that home run though, Silva hightailed it to 1st to cover the base on a close play. He got his last 2 outs on 4-3 ground balls(2B to 1B putouts) The next inning, Silva allowed a leadoff double. He then made a play on a bunted ball in front of the mound, he hopped off the mound and got to the ball in time to throw the runner out. He struck out the next batter and then repeated his previous play on a bunted ball in front of the mound, reaching it in time again to throw the runner out at first. I guess he really does not want to be playing in the minor leagues anymore. In his third and final inning of work Silva had a strikeout swinging followed by a strikeout looking. He then walked Mr. 1st inning home run only to strikeout his last batter of the evening. I would say that he did well.
The Tampa Yankee offense actually came to some life in this game. Their biggest problem offensively has been BABIP which I now kind of understand. When they aren't striking out, the balls that they are hitting are being hit right to the fielders, seriously I dont think I saw one Cub outfielder or infielder have to make a tough play on a ball in the 2 games that I went to, it was like the ball was a magnet and the fielders were the fridge. The Yankees didn't get lucky until the 4th inning when Rob Lyerly singled and was followed by Jason Place who reached on an error on the shortstop. Zoilo Almonte followed Place's lead and ended up on 2nd base after the Cubs right fielder made his own error, that lead to Lyerly scoring the first TY run of the game. Taylor Grote drove in the next run on a sacrifice bunt and the TY had tied the game. The TY were at it again in the 5th inning. Abe Almonte hit a 2 out single, he stole 2nd and was driven in on a single by Rob Lyerly. The TY had their first lead in a week! It looked promising too as Jairo Heredia came in to pitch the 5th inning. He had two perfect innings in the 5th and 6th. In the bottom of the 6th, the TY scored another 2 runs without the help of errors which contributed to their 2 runs in the 4th. Jason Place started the inning with a single, he was erased on a Zoilo Almonte fielders choice. Luke Murton singled to move Zoilo up to 2nd. Taylor Grote grounded moving both runners to 2nd and 3rd. A pitching change later, both Kyle Higashioka and Emerson Landoni singled to bring both runners home. That was the extent of damage the TY would put on the board through the rest of the game as the went hitless through the final 3 innings. The TY were up 5-2 going into the 7th inning.
Without going into batter by batter detail which you can all see for yourself at tybaseball.com, I will just say that Jairo Heredia got himself into a bit of a jam that his replacement was thankfully able to get him out of without letting the game get out of hand. He did however give up 5 runs in the top of the 7th which made the Cubs winners again. With 1 out and the bases loaded(HBP, single, single) Jairo Heredia got the groundball he was looking for, unfortunately it went to the one fielder that was totally incapable of fielding it. Rob Lyerly. The one ball the whole entire game that went to Rob, probably the most important ball the whole game which could have ended the inning, was instead bobbled, rolled through his legs, no throw was made and a run scored. The bases were still loaded and on the next batter Heredia walked in the 2nd run of the inning. The following batter(who hit a 2 run HR in the first inning) singled to center and plated another 2 runs. After an intentional walk to load the bases again, Heredia walked the next batter forcing in the 5th and last run of the inning. He was replaced by Preston Claiborne who managed to leave the bases loaded by getting the final 2 batters(who started the inning) to strikeout and groundout.
It was not a pretty game for either team but it would have felt good to leave with a win. Today the Tampa Yankees lost 5-0. They managed to get only 4 hits.
Something that I had meant to include on the post from the Clearwater game is something about the Threshers 1st baseman, Joe Savery. Apparently Savery came up through the Phillies organization as a pitcher. In college he both pitched and hit and he was great at both. When he was drafted they made him only a pitcher. He disliked the downtime between starts so much that the team let him DH once or twice between starts which he thrived at. When he moved up to AAA last season he bombed, his ERA blew up and he was banished to the bullpen. He realized that he was no good to the organization so he spoke to the director of player development for the Phillies and asked if he could try hitting full time because he knew he was still good at that. They sent him to the instructional league and decided that he was good enough to play first base and sent him to Clearwater. Joe Savery is currently first in the FSL in batting average with an average of .430. he is 40/93 with 7 walks and only 8 strikeouts, his OPS is 1.046. I read this in their program that they handed out at the gate and I thought it was just a really neat story. Even though he is on the oppositions team, these kinds of stories always interest me. Its cool that he was able to realize that he wasnt doing himself or the organization any good as a pitcher and he is doing excellent now as a fielder and hitter now. I hope that he gets promoted really soon so he can torture another league.
I will post pictures when I can find my cable to link my camera to my computer.
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