Mormon Baseball

Posts Tagged ‘Nik Turley’

Jeff Gelalich improved his record for the season, and his performance with the California League (A+) Bakersfield Blaze last week, with a 5 for 17 performance (.294) that included 2 rbis, 3 runs scored, 3 walks and 3 stolen bases. He has now spent half of this year with the Blaze, up from the Dayton Dragons (Midwest League – A), and the A+ part of the year has clearly been better; Gelalich has hit .259 for the Blaze, and given them 8 of his 10 home runs for the year.

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Financial advisors often disclaim their proposals with the statement “past performance is not a guarantee of future returns.” That’s true in baseball also. But while we hear and understand that disclaimer, we don’t exactly believe it—we expect baseball players to perform the way they have in the past.

By this past week’s numbers, the Sacramento River Cats’ Shane Peterson looks like he will be a star in the majors. He was 10 for 22 (.455) with 2 home runs, 4 rbis and 7 runs scored. And those numbers just topped off a great season so far; Peterson’s average for the season is .316 and he leads the PCL with 95 runs scored and 156 hits and is second in RBIs (82) and 4th in walks (59). While those numbers will no doubt drop off  when he reaches the majors, we all believe that he will do well.

But, “past performance is not a guarantee of future returns.” We’ll see.

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It was Jaycob Brugman’s week. In the past 5 games, he has hit 6 home runs out of 9 times that he has connected in 20 at bats (.450). His home run streak (which could continue today) accounted for all of the 6 runs and 8 rbis he earned and raised his season totals to 16 home runs and a .275 batting average. Good luck keeping up that pace!

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On their way back from injuries earlier in the season, both Boone Whiting of the Memphis Redbirds (SLC – Pacific Coast League – AAA) and Nik Turley of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Rail Riders (NYY – International League – AAA) have pitched well, and they both improved their records last week, ahead of the AAA all star game tonight. Whiting was slightly better, earning a win and shutting out his opponent in his 5 innings of work while giving up 2 hits and striking out 7. With the shutout, Whiting’s season era is down to 3.92, mostly making up for the bad outings before his injury. Turley gave up just 1 run in 5 2/3rds while striking out 2 and bringing his season era down below 5.00. Turley has pitched less than 22 innings since returning from the DL.

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Sometimes a bad day can just hang around forever. That is certainly true when you talk about baseball statistics. Unfortunately, for Tyler Pill, its not just one bad start, but three in a row at the beginning of the season that are dogging his averages.

Pill’s first three starts were uniformly awful — 15 earned runs in 14 innings (9.64 era) and a 2.00 WHIP — putting him in a statistical hole. But since then, Pill has started 5 games and all have been stellar. His era for those 5 games is just 1.65, and his WHIP weighs in at an excellent 0.95. In the first three games he struck out 8 (5 per 9 innings), and in the last 5 he has struck out 25 (8 per 9 innings). But, still his season era is on the high side (4.35), as he tries to work it down. He will likely need another 4 or 5 games to get down to a 3.00 era.

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Playoff games tend to have clutch moments. In a 3-game series every game is a clutch situation. And even up a game, the Hagerstown Suns must have felt it in a clutch when the 9th inning of the second ended in a tie. And then in the 11th, after Justin Thomas put on two base runners and got just one out, they called up Bryan Harper in the clutch situation.

Unfortunately, Harper couldn’t stop the West Virginia Power from scoring. He gave up a double to Josh Bell, which scored the two runners left on base by Thomas, and then a single that scored Bell, before inducing a strike out that ended the inning. But the damage done was too much for the Suns to make up, and the Power tied the series at 1 game all. The Suns and Power play the deciding game tonight.

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Clayton Mortensen, who pitched in the Red Sox bull pen earlier this year, started for the Omaha Storm Chasers in their second post-season game and earned the win, despite a bad 4th inning in which he gave up 4 runs and nearly lost the game. The Storm Chasers had only scored twice before the bottom of the fourth, and Mortensen then struggled, giving up a single, followed by a walk, followed by an rbi single and then a 3-run home run, all before he managed to pull it together and get grounders to finish off the side. For another inning he faced the loss, but in the top of the 6th Omaha scored another 5 runs and the bull-pen shut down the Oklahoma Red Wings to give Mortensen a win. Still, it was an ugly one, as Mortensen ended up with a 7.20 era and 1.40 WHIP. He gave up a total of 5 hits, two walks while striking out 4.

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Its what every baseball fan dreams of.

Its the playoffs. Bottom of the 10th. Two out. Your team gave up 4 runs in the top of the 10th. You’ve already done well, 1 for 2 with 2 walks and no strike outs. If you can just get on base, maybe your team will find a way to tie, or win the game.

And then you get a perfect pitch. You swing, and watch as the ball sails out of the outfield.

For most of us that is a fantasy. We’ll never even be in professional ball, let alone pull off end-of-the-game heroics.

For Marcus Littlewood that was yesterday.

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With the end of the regular minor league season yesterday (except for the Pioneer League, which ends on Saturday, September 8th), 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.

Here’s a run-down of the seven Mormons in the minors who are on teams that will play in the league championships:

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Most of the minor leagues completed their seasons this past week, and the majors expanded their rosters to 40, leading to shuffling among the minor leagues. Two Mormons in the minors were promoted as a result, one went back to the majors, and a total of 7 Mormons may play in the various minor league post-season games.

Among the best last week was Matt Neil, who was one of those promoted. Leaving the Jacksonville Suns (Southern, AA), Neil started this past week for the New Orleans Zephyrs (Pacific Coast, AAA) and turned in a strong performance, blanking the Albuquerque Isotopes over 6 innings, striking out 6 and walking just 1. Neil also pitched for the Zephyrs earlier in the season, but this was probably his strongest performance there. With luck, he will start the year next year in New Orleans.

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