Cubs Minor League Wrap -- April 21

A painful night at Sec Taylor in more ways than one. Dollar dog night and I are going to need to come to a mutual understanding. And a 7-0 shutout (our offense was sterilized by the Isotopes’ pitching) doesn’t help.
 
Nice night for a game. Wind strong at game time from the LF foul pole to his RF counterpart, dying down to still by the 5th. 60 degrees or so, 4198 attending. 4 umpires, which is one more than I thought they were supposed to have, but maybe I missed a memo.
 
Three singles, an error resulting in a double, and a walk were the total offense produced by the I-Cubs. Jake Fox grounded out 3 times and struck out once to end his hitting streak. The defense looked good, though the outfielders are still adjusting to playing balls off the wall.
 
And then there was Caridad. He had a great fastball to start, clocked in as high as 94 mph in the first, but little else to offer. I think I saw maybe a dozen off-speed pitches all night, only one of which sticks in my mind as having good action. He had success as long as his placements were accurate, but wasn’t nailing down his locations right from the start. By the middle of the second (30 pitches in) his velocity had dropped off to high eighties, and his control started to go shortly thereafter, probably indirectly resulting in a run-scoring balk. The third was just ugly, with four hits, two walks, and a total of five runs (all earned). Final numbers: 104 pitches in 4 and 2/3; 4 K’s, 5 BB, 7H, 6ER, and a balk.
 
For what it’s worth, the relievers looked fairly good. Reinhard threw 2 1/3 good innings, with 6 (!) K’s, 2 BB and a hit. Estrada pitched 2, giving up 2 hits, an ER, and getting a K.
 
Dollar admission on Thursday, maybe I’ll skip out early on work.

Here’s a report from the game tonight that was emailed to me.

 
A painful night at Sec Taylor in more ways than one. Dollar dog night and I are going to need to come to a mutual understanding. And a 7-0 shutout (our offense was sterilized by the Isotopes’ pitching) doesn’t help.
 
Nice night for a game. Wind strong at game time from the LF foul pole to his RF counterpart, dying down to still by the 5th. 60 degrees or so, 4198 attending. 4 umpires, which is one more than I thought they were supposed to have, but maybe I missed a memo.
 
Three singles, an error resulting in a double, and a walk were the total offense produced by the I-Cubs. Jake Fox grounded out 3 times and struck out once to end his hitting streak. The defense looked good, though the outfielders are still adjusting to playing balls off the wall.
 
And then there was Caridad. He had a great fastball to start, clocked in as high as 94 mph in the first, but little else to offer. I think I saw maybe a dozen off-speed pitches all night, only one of which sticks in my mind as having good action. He had success as long as his placements were accurate, but wasn’t nailing down his locations right from the start. By the middle of the second (30 pitches in) his velocity had dropped off to high eighties, and his control started to go shortly thereafter, probably indirectly resulting in a run-scoring balk. The third was just ugly, with four hits, two walks, and a total of five runs (all earned). Final numbers: 104 pitches in 4 and 2/3; 4 K’s, 5 BB, 7H, 6ER, and a balk.
 
For what it’s worth, the relievers looked fairly good. Reinhard threw 2 1/3 good innings, with 6 (!) K’s, 2 BB and a hit. Estrada pitched 2, giving up 2 hits, an ER, and getting a K.
 
Hope that helps. Dollar admission on Thursday, maybe I’ll skip out early on work.
 
Gerald

I got another one that said, essentially, it was a lousy game.

Are they trying really really hard to win the AAA title? They look like they could plausibly be an MLB expansion team with their collection of moderately-well-known former major leaguers.

Estes, Weaver, Milton, Sturze, Scott Strickland, even our own Stephen Randolph.

And Danny Ardoin, and Jason Repko, Dee Brown, Hector Luna – the Topes seem to be older, to have more MLB experience, and to be less useful to the MLB club than any other AAA team I’ve seen in a while. They have a 39 year old on this team! 14 of their players are over 30, and the rest arent far behind. Odd.

…in both the “getting hits” and “drawing walks” categories. Nice to see.

I do have a question, though: How could he be 2 for 3 with two walks? Wouldn’t that make him 2 of 4? Or am I missing something here?