Back in the Win Column

The Sea Dogs improved to 11-1 on the season with a 5-4 win over the Binghamton Mets, avenging their only loss of the season. The weather was colder than I expected - a little cooler than Monday night - but all in all not bad for April baseball in Portland.

Scorers Notes:

• My first look at Jon Lester, and he was pretty good. Not as impressive as Papelbon, as the control wasn't quite as sharp and the fastball isn't quite as fast, but he's still very highly regarded. I had a hard time figuring out what he was throwing, because the radar readings were funky for the second night in a row. According to his profile at Soxprospects.com, he's got a cutter, a change and a curve. The cutter must be the mid-80's pitch that I thought was a slider. Lester walked three last night after only allowing one free pass in his first two games, but he gave up only two hits and struck out 6, so the K:BB ratio remains a fine 19:4 in 13 IP this year. Lester built up a pretty good pitch count (93 in 5 innings), largely due to an inability to rear back and fire it past the hitters early in the count. I counted 29 foul balls vs. 9 swinging strikes last night. Still, of his six K's, only one was a called strike three.
• The Mets guy was less impressive. Highly touted Yusmiero Petit (the link is a feature at minorleaguebaseball.com) failed to show what the fuss is about last night. The book on Petit is that he's a soft-tosser who gets guys out with a deceptive delivery. I can see that, but he didn't really deceive a lot of people last night. On the plus side, he did induce a lot of "soft" contact on his pitches, and he struck out Pedroia and Ramirez, both looking, back to back. On the minus side, he also allowed some "very hard" contact, particularly to Jeremy West (two doubles), Mike O'Keefe (a deep home run), and David Murphy (a two-run double). Petit has been on a strict pitch count this season, and he was lifted after 66 pitches / 3 2/3 IP last night.
• Actually, the guy in relief was more impressive. Eric Junge, who has major league experience (2-0, 2.21 ERA in 20 1/3 IP with the 2002-03 Phillies), went 4.1 and pretty much shut down the Portland bats (after allowing a run scoring double to Alberto Concepcion on his first pitch, that is). Google turned up little on Junge - I'm not sure why a 2.21 ERA doesn't get you another chance at the bigs (maybe an injury), or at least at AAA, but he's still only 28, so maybe he'll get another chance. From what I read about the Mets bullpen, he might get a chance sooner than you would think.
• Speaking of relief, I had mixed emotions about the end of the game for the Sea Dogs. On the one hand, I was looking forward to seeing Cla Meredith pitch for the first time. Apparently he has nasty stuff. Instead, manager Todd Claus chose to stick with the hot hand, going with Marc Deschesnes for 2.1 IP of relief. Deschesnes was terrific, retiring all seven batters that he faced on 27 pitches, striking out four. It's a bullpen approach that I like to see, I just was selfishly hoping to see Meredith take the mound. (Not that there won't be more opportunities - I'm scheduled for four more games this week. Yikes!!)
• There were two other players that I mentioned earlier as being on John Sickels' top 20 list for the Mets - Wayne Lydon and Aarom Baldiris. Lydon rated a "C", and I guess that's because he has speed. He stole 65 bases for Binghamton last year. Unfortunately, that's about all I see from him. A switch hitter, he's pure slap from the left side (think Ichiro! without any pop), although he does take a decent cut batting right handed. He is pesky, fouling off a lot of pitches, but doesn't seem to be in a rush to take a pitch (although he does have a decent walk rate). I'd say he's a marginal prospect at best. Baldiris looks to be the better prospect. He hits the ball with some authority and is able to work the count pretty well. He looked a little shaky in the field on Monday (he DH'd Tuesday), but I'd guess that it's his bat that the Mets are looking at.
• This was also my first time seeing the Zooperstars, a touring entertainment troupe. A lot of the schtick is predictable, but it's good fun. My favorite was Harry Canary. You'll have two more chances to catch the Zooperstars this season - July 14 and August 15, so check 'em out if you can get some tickets!