Monday, May 18, 2009

Claws gain split

The resilient Lakewood BlueClaws scored a split with the Intimidators by taking the finale of their series on Sunday by a score of 5-4. Travis Mattair had 3 hits and a walk, and Korby Mintken and Leandro Castro each had a single, a double and an RBI as the BlueClaws got some clutch hits and backed fine pitching from Jon Velasquez and Justin De Fratus for the win.

Just a quick note on De Fratus, who has been phenomenal so far. Justin has been in 13 games, throwing 30.2 innings for Lakewood. He has allowed just 5 earned runs on 26 hits (that's a 1.47 ERA), striking out 33 hitters. O yea, he has only 1 walk!!! I was surprised when he was not in the rotation, but he has been a Godsend out of the bullpen.

We are halfway to the All-Star break, and Lakewood is 20-15, leading the division by a game and a half over Greensboro. The next 16 games are 8 with last place West Virginia, who just swept Delmarva, and 8 against Greensboro.

The Threshers won a back and forth game in Lakeland Sunday, scoring 3 in the 9th to take a 9-8 win over the Flying Tigers. Kyle Drabek started and pitched shut out ball for 6 innings. He started the 7th with a walk and 2 hits and was replaced by Chris Kissock, who let all 3 runners score, as well as 3 more. Darren Byrd came in for the final out of the 7th, but gave up 2 runs on 3 hits in the 8th. After Clearwater had their 9th inning rally, Chance Chapman came in for the save.

Fidel Hernandez (.301, 2 singles, double,a stolen base, 2 runs scored, RBI) and Dominic Brown (.328, single, 2 doubles, a stolen base, run scored, 3 RBI) lead the shark attack and Tim Kennelly chipped in with a pair of hits.

I am heading out to get some work done early today before taking off on a 3 day, 4 game trip which will start tonight in Lehigh Valley. Tuesday schedule has me in Lehigh for an AM game followed by a night game in Reading, and Wednesday morning I will take in the Reading game before heading home.

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