Mormon Baseball

Posts Tagged ‘Taylor Cole’

With the Billings Mustangs’ loss last night to the Missoula Osprey, Jeff Gelalich is out of the Pioneer League playoffs, leaving the number of Mormons in the Minor League playoffs at 6. Gelalich didn’t play in the game.

But in the first round of the 5-game PCL playoffs, both Mormon players did play, as the playoff teams evened up their series to 1-1. Stephen Parker was 0 for 3 with 2 strike outs, but his Sacramento River Cats won anyway to even their series against the Reno Aces. Mitch Maier was 1 for 4 with a strike out in the Omaha Storm Chasers’ loss to the Albuquerque Isotopes.

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In the first playoff game for the Omaha Storm Chasers, Mitch Maier showed that a walk can be very powerful. Maier led the team with three free trips to first and scored twice as a result, as the Storm Chasers beat the Albuquerque Isotopes 8-4. Maier also struck out and flied out in the game.

Meanwhile, in the other PCL playoff game, Stephen Parker watched from the bench as his Sacramento River Cats lost to the Reno Aces 3-1.

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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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I don’t normally begin my write-up talking about a minor league player, but this week the stellar pitching of Taylor Cole with the Vancouver Canadians (A short season) kind of demanded front billing. Cole came close to baseball’s ultimate performance, a pitching performance over 7 2/3rds innings marred only by a teammate’s error. Still, Cole was pitching a no-hitter for his 6th win of the season when he was pulled from the game against the Yakima Bears. The Northwest league’s regular season has ended, Cole finishes the year with a stunning (and league-leading) 0.81 era. He will likely pitch in the Canadians’ post-season games, which start today.

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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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