Monday, August 2, 2010

Monday Notes

Stacy Long updates us on Jake McGee's season in Montgomery:
"I've been getting a good feel for everything and the last thing to come (after Tommy John) is a consistent feel for your pitches," McGee said.

McGee still has a major league-quality fastball that crosses 95 mph, but his off-speed pitches still are unpolished. Gardner said he's impressed with how McGee has commanded his fastball, but "obviously, his slider is not where it needs to be."

"He has shown flashes of being able to throw it for strikes and using it as a takeout pitch," Gardner said. "If you look at the whole body of work, he's had several good starts for us.

"There is progress there."
Sean T. McMann reports 2nd round pick Derek Dietrich had to leave yesterday's game with a finger injury:
Luis (2 for 3) got his chance to play when Dietrich, a second-round draft pick of the Tampa Bay Rays, "took a ball off the end of his middle finger," during warm-ups after the first inning, Sandberg said.

"He'll be day-to-day," the manager said, "and he'll be evaluated (today)."
Laura Owens has a nice feature on Biscuits outfielder Emeel Salem:
Salem said one of the biggest obstacles of his job is staying patient while moving up from team to team and not paying attention to other players who may move up earlier. “I've been fortunate enough to move up every year,” he said. “And I've been treated fairly, so we all try our hardest to not look around at other people and just try to focus on our own situation.”

Biscuits manager Billy Gardner said he thinks Salem has a good chance to keep moving up. “He's done a good job being at the top of the lineup as far as getting on base, scoring runs, stealing bases,” the manager said. “He's also gotten some big hits for us.”
Only four teams in the American League have winning records against the AL East:

Tampa Bay - 27-14
New York - 23-14
Toronto - 20-16
Detroit - 11-10

Boston is 20-21.

3 comments:

  1. The Blue Jays record is misleading. They are 12-0 against Baltimore

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  2. Has Detrich played well at SS or, like reports have said, will he have to move to 3rd or a corner OF spot? And is there a chance he is promoted to bowling green before the season or not?

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  3. re TOR: yeah, but everyone else in the division gets to play them too, we'll have to see at the end of the year who benefitted the most.

    re Dietrich: so far he's played in 34 games, 3 at DH and 31 at SS. So the Rays must be willing to see if he can handle it. So far at SS he's made 7 errors in 119 chances, a .941 fielding percentage. Don't have any advanced defensive numbers to offer, but if the Rays are keeping him there, must be a chance he can stick, at least for a while (long way to the majors). I do agree though that everything I read heading into the draft suggested he couldn't stick at short.

    Oh, and no, don't see a promotion as likely (unless injury at BG), not the Rays way. Should start there next season.

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