The Stone Crabs held on to first place of the division and increased their lead to two games over second place Fort Myers by posting a 5-2 record on the week. The week started with the Stone Crabs completing a three game sweep of the Hammerheads and highlighted by the Stone Crabs making the largest comeback in team history, scoring nine runs in a single inning to overcome an eight run deficit and defeat the Flying Tigers. Hitting Leaders: Shawn Riggans leads active Stone Crab players with an .300 average, followed by Henry Wrigley who is hitting .297. Wrigley also leads the team in homers with 5. John Matulia leads the team in doubles with 14 and Emeel Salem has the lead in triples with 6, which is tied for third in the league. Greg Sexton is the team leader in RBI’s with 36. Shawn O’Malley is third in the league in stolen bases with 34 swipes on the year.
Pitching Leaders: Jeremy Hall won his league leading twelfth game this week. Darin Downs leads the starters with an 2.21 ERA and is second in the league in both ERA and wins with 10. Downs leads the lead in strikeouts with 96 and David Newmann is tenth with 81. With the promotion of Matt Gorgen, Tommy Rafferty takes over with the lowest overall ERA with a 2.05 (Richard De Los Santos still holds a 0.00 but has only appeared in 2 games for 4 innings versus Rafferty’s 13 appearances for 22 innings).
Team Stats: The team offense improved to .248 but fell to ninth in the league. The Stone Crabs are ranked tenth in the league in doubles, sixth in triples, eleventh in home runs and second in stolen bases. The team ERA dropped to 3.72 which is ranked eighth in the league. The staff is third in the league in wins with 52 and third in strikeouts with 691. They have given up 394 runs (332 of them earned) off 796 hits so far this season.
Transaction: Brian Shouse added to roster on MLB rehab assignment (7/16/09). Matt Gorgen promoted to Montgomery (7/17/09). Richard De Los Santos added to roster from Hudson Valley (7/17/09). Jake McGee added to the roster from GCL Rays (7/18/09).
Injuries: Disabled List; Stephen Vogt (shoulder), Jesse Darcy (elbow), Greg Sexton (foot). Day-to-Day; Emeel Salem (hamstring).
The Week Ahead: 7/23/09-7/25/09: vs Clearwater Threshers (12-12). 7/26/09-7/29/09: vs Tampa Yankees (15-8).
(I meant to write my comment on this site and not the previous one.) Is Catcher Ian Paxton hurt? His BA is .293, and right near the top of active StoneCrabs active hitters, but he's hardly seen in the lineup. Just read that offensive numbers have gone down for StoneCrabs, so wouldn't they want to play those with high stats?
ReplyDeletePaxton has only played in 10 games in the last month (going back to June 24th). In those 10 games he's hitting .188 (6-32), of the 6 hits 5 were singles and 1 double, no walks and 7 strikeouts. So he's been in a month-long slump. They are also trying to get Riggans some time on his rehab assignment.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Jim or Nick will be by later to shed some more light on it, but to me it appears he's slumping and they have 3 other catchers he's sharing time with (Riggans, Lopez, and McCormick).
OK. Thanks, Doug.
ReplyDeletePedro Martinez has been assigned to Clearwater and is scheduled to start on Sunday the 26th. The Stone Crabs missed him by one day.
ReplyDeleteJust got back from Charlotte Sports Park and Paxton was in the lineup tonight. Appears, with confirmation from the Stone Crabs, that was not an injury. Just too many catchers on the roster and not enough spots to play them in.
ReplyDeleteYeah.. Paxton and Lopez have just lost playing time with the addition of McCormick and Riggans.
ReplyDeleteSure looks that way. Still not sure why McCormick was even promoted, especially since Bowling Green only has 2 catchers. (Jefferies is supposedly not catching, but rather is the DH). Who can figure out the crazy world of baseball!
ReplyDeleteWhen is Sexton expected to return?
ReplyDeleteNot sure. He was still on crutches last night.
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