Minor League Games - Monday, September 10, 2018

[kikutaro]

Lakewood BlueClaws (1-0) @ Lexington Legends (0-1) 7:05 pm | Gameday
Damon Jones (0-0, 9.00) vs. Yefri Del Rosario (0-0, 0.00)

Final
Lakewood 6, Lexington 5

Notable

Rodolfo Duran 2-4, 2 R, 3 RBI, HR, BB, 2 K
Jhailyn Ortiz 1-4, R, RBI, HR, 2 K
Nick Maton 2-4, R, RBI, HR, BB
Madison Stokes 1-4, RBI, BB, 2 K
Dalton Guthrie 0-5, 2 K
Jose Antequera 0-4, 2 K

Damon Jones 4.0 IP, 5H, 4R, 4ER, 3BB, 4K, game score: 28
Gustavo Armas 3.0 IP, 2H, 1R, 1ER, 3BB, 3K
Connor Brogdon (W, 1-0), 2.0 IP, 1H, 0R, 0ER, 1BB, 5K
Zach Warren (S, 1), 1.0 IP, 0H, 0R, 0ER, 1BB, 2K

(click on the start time for box scores)

[Philsmania]

And then there was one.

[phillychuck]

Iron Pigs were better than they showed in the playoffs--lots of promotions to the big leagues sort of decimated them. CLW got unlucky with their bullpen.

[fish]

Lakewood down 4-0 so far through 4. Jones has his really good fastball but the breaking ball is awful. Sometimes he cuts it ok, but anything near the strike zone is getting ripped, and by lefties too. Not sure what you do with a lefty with a big fastball that can’t seem to spin the ball. His change is nothing special either.

Lexington pitcher Del Rosario is one of the guys the Braves lost. His motion looks like Enelyo De Los Santos. Lakewood has a lot of good fastball hitters, but Del Rosario is a fastball pitcher who is still able to work them over pretty good.

[Squire]

Lakewood just scored 5 to tie it in the 9th

[andyb]

Back to back to back HRs from Duran, Ortiz, and Maton. Duran's with 2 on.

[Jeff05]

And, Lakewood win 6-5 in the eleventh!

[Philsmania]

Iron Pigs were better than they showed in the playoffs--lots of promotions to the big leagues sort of decimated them. CLW got unlucky with their bullpen.

I get it, the minor leagues exist to service the Major Leagues but that cannot be helpful to encourage good feelings toward the Phillies on behalf of the IronPigs faithful after the Phillies basically raided the Pigs on September 1 and had reinforcements like Haseley unavailable. I know if I was an IronPigs season ticket holder, I would be pretty annoyed.

[phillychuck]

I am, and I am.

[gmwannabe]

yes, that's pretty lousy.

[Philsmania]

yes, that's pretty lousy.

A ML franchise should be good to its affiliates to keep them happy. The Phillies pretty much screwed the Pigs over and arguably did so last year with a bunch of call ups after the Pigs rallied at the end of the season to grab a wildcard berth.

[bigegypt0417]

yes, that's pretty lousy.

A ML franchise should be good to its affiliates to keep them happy. The Phillies pretty much screwed the Pigs over and arguably did so last year with a bunch of call ups after the Pigs rallied at the end of the season to grab a wildcard berth.

It hasn't exactly worked out so great but do you believe the Phillies should have not called up players for their playoff drive so the AAA team could win in the playoffs?

[zambonir]

Yeah I'd be a little less annoyed (if I was a Pigs fan per se, but I have followed a lot of minor league teams) if the Phillies hadn't made such poor use of the extra assets.

But, tbh, they're lucky they didn't lose a starting pitcher. And most of the call-ups were players who weren't really on the Pigs to begin with. They called up 8 players between 9/1 and 9/4 but only Cozens was a true minor leaguer on that list. Knapp was the 9th. Walding the 10th, which was unfortunate and, I'd think, unnecessary, but was due to Franco's health.

And obviously the players will take the call-up, as a fan of a minor league team you have to be happy for them to get even that one-day pay bump and service time.

[Philsmania]

Since their callups, Altherr, Crawford, Walding, Cozens and Knapp have a combined total of seven at-bats, five of them by Altherr while Rios pitched in all of one game. They've been extra extra men. So yes, I would say they raided the Pigs for nothing.

[bkeich]

I am, and I am.

I understand how you feel PC, but the Phils were in a position to win the division still on Sept 1. They have to make the moves that give them the best chance to do that, and sadly both things went wrong, LHV was knocked out easily and early and in all honestly we are right on the edge of not being in a playoff race anymore. No one would be complaining if we were now tied with the Braves, but that just didnt happen.

[andyb]

They could probably have eased up on one or two callups (like Crawford who still needs the ABs). But the major league club is the priority. They needed several extra pitchers. Altherr does provide something a little different than other RH OFs. And they clearly needed the 3rd catcher.

Not great for Iron Pigs fans but rule number one is to provide everything the ML club needs and rule number two is that the best prospects get the most playing time. After that they are free to try to win. I wish a couple more Reading players like Haseley could have been called up, but then it is still not the same team that won it any more, so it probably does not make too much difference. The 40-man shuffle also hurt them with guys like Leiter and Lively being lost.

[zambonir]

But that is hindsight. If there'd been an extra-inning game or a rainout like yesterday or an in-game injury that still matters more. And Walding and Knapp (who wasn't needed down there more than he was up here) have only been up for a few days.

Andy's right that the removal of multiple players from the 40 was probably a bigger blow. Leiter, Lively, Valentin, Thompson all taken away. It did seem like Cozens and Crawford and Walding could have finished out the season but now we also know that Williams and Franco and Quinn have all been injured.

The Iron Pigs ownership knows what they are there for, and are pretty much intertwined with the Phillies. It's different/harder when you have an more independent owner, or a fan base that isn't as interested in the parent team.

[Lucky_Beagle]

If this constantly happens maybe the minor leagues should consider shortening their season by a week, but I am sure they don't want to give up more home dates either. I really think MLB should prohibit teams from calling players up on 9/1. I will never understand the logic of playing the last month differently than the first 5 of the season. Or they could come up with some type of compromise like 9/1 1 extra hitter and pitcher can be added 9/8 another hitter and pitcher can be added

[zambonir]

It's just the nature of AAA: very much a level of non-40-man free agents and AAAA guys. And even the players who are on the 40 are as much depth as prospects. Every year skews a little differently but the rosters, systems, and needs of the major league team varies so much from year-to-year that it's not really a problem, some years just don't break well.

In hindsight you can say that not only did the Pigs get screwed, but the the loss of spare parts and development time for various players wasn't worth the frantic, now utterly failed effort to improve the team for August and September.

The new era of 10-day DLs and teams limitless appetite for relievers is something that might need to be addressed. Higher roster limits? Of course that still costs money, even though it's not a lot.

[andyb]

I'd be for a "designate 25 players per game" rule in September. That effectively gives you 29 players without the other 4 starters and that seems enough to me. Really it is 30-31 players because you would rest relievers that went multiple innings the night before.

38-man rosters are just a little bit too much.