Mormon Baseball

Posts Tagged ‘Marcus Littlewood’

Matthew Neil

Former BYU pitcher Matt Neil was promoted by the Marlins to their AAA club, the New Orleans Zephyrs, and pitched well in his first AAA start, lasting six innings while giving up just 2 hits and 1 run. The move puts Neil on the same team with vetran pitcher Mitch Talbot (also Mormon), who has returned to the U.S. after playing in Korea. Talbot is currently on the DL, and hasn’t played since April 7th.

Neil’s pitching performance was matched by another prospect, but in the AA Eastern League. Nik Turley, currently with the Yankees’ affiliate Trenton Thunder, also lasted 6 innings and gave up just 1 run, but Turley struck out 6 and walked 2 in his outing. And with Turley on the Yankees 40-man roster, he seems more likely to make an appearance in the majors.

Also pitching well this week was the Blue Jay’s Josh Johnson, who lasted 3 innings in a rehab assignment with the Dunedin Blue Jays (Florida State League, A+) and gave up just 1 run while striking out 5.

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The A’s outfield prospect, Shane Peterson, ended a post-majors slump last week in a big way. He went 8 for 19 for the week (.421) while hitting 2 home runs and stealing 3 bases, and in the process raised his season average past .300. He was once again the Peterson we saw in Spring Training. Peterson’s slump came right after he spent two games in the majors, substituting at 1st base for Brandon Moss, who was out for paternity leave.

Peterson wasn’t the only Mormon in the minor leagues whose bat woke up last week. Both Stephen Parker (AAA Nashville Sounds) and Marcus Littlewood (A Clinton Lumberkings) hit .286 last week, although Littlewood did it in just 7 at bats while Parker went 8 for 28. Parker also had a home run and 3 rbis.

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Pitching in the second game of the Canadian’s three game series to represent the West division in the Northwest League Championship, Taylor Cole pitched 6 innings, giving up 5 hits and seeing just 1 run cross the plate. Cole struck out 3, walked 3 and ended up with a 0.00 era due to a fielding error.

Among those he faced was the Everett Aquasox’ Marcus Littlewood, who went 1 or 3 with a walk and a strike out. Due to the Canadians’ win, Littlewood’s season ends, while Cole waits to see who wins today’s game between the Yakima Bears and Boise Hawks. The Canadians play the winner of today’s game in the Northwest League’s 3-game championship starting Friday, Sept. 7th.

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With the end of the regular minor league season yesterday (except for the rookie Pioneer League, which ends on Thursday, September 6th), the Mormons in the minors can look forward to further games in only two ways: they might get called up to the majors with the expanded 40-man roster that started September 1st, or they might play in any of the minor league championship games that have even begun for some teams.

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The Mormon domain—that part of the Western U.S. where Mormons are a significant portion of the population—first gained a major league team in 1998 when the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks started playing. Since then several Mormons have played on the team, but recently there hasn’t been a Mormon for local fans to cheer. That changed again Sunday when the Diamondbacks traded for Matt Lindstrom.
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A reader has alerted me to another Mormon playing professional baseball, Lance Pendleton, who is currently with the Durham Bulls in the Tampa Bay Ray’s organization. After he was drafted by the Yankees out of Rice University, Pendleton has spent 6 years in the minors, rising to even the major leagues, debuting on April 15th of last year. Unfortunately, his numbers aren’t very strong this year — a 4.49 era so far — so a return to the majors seems unlikely at the moment.

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Welcome back to the bigs, Adam Rosales! The Oakland As brought Rosales back from the minors this week after they sent down backup infielder Brandon Hicks. While Rosales didn’t immediately tear up the base paths, he does have a chance to capitalize on the move and show that he should stay.

Rosales wasn’t the only one called up this week. The Red Sox called up Clayton Mortensen again, but again it was just for a single game (which Mortensen won in 2.2 innings of shutout relief) before he was sent back down. Mortensen didn’t help his case, however, by then giving up a home run in his next start with AAA Pawtucket. Still, he sports a 1.96 era over 36.2 inning with Pawtucket and a 1.17 era over 23 innings in the majors.

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Matthew Neil

Last week Major League Baseball held its most important annual draft, indicating interest in more than 1,500 possible players. As far as I can tell, just two of them are Mormon, down from 6 last year.

I’ve diligently searched the list of those drafted for other Mormon players, but I wasn’t able to identify anyone as Mormon, based on articles and web pages that turned up in my searches. Of course, there are likely some who are Mormon, but I couldn’t find any indication of that.

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