Gators top Dogs

The Norwich Navigators upended the Sea Dogs 9-4 on Friday night at Hadlock Field. I'm 0-2 now in games pitched by Anibal Sanchez. He pitched well enough last night, allowing four runs in six innings and getting burned mostly by a three-run home run by Tyler Von Schell in the second inning. Sanchez' has pitched much worse in the games attended by JSB than in his other five AA starts:

9.2IP 9H 7R 7ER 3BB 9K 3HR 5.59 ERA 1.30 WHIP
30.2IP 16H 3R 3R 4BB 36K 1HR 0.88 ERA 0.65 WHIP

Brian Burres walked a tightrope for the Navigators, allowing six hits and five walks over 5.1 innings, but got himself out of trouble with seven strikeouts. Burres mixed a variety of offspeed stuff to keep Portland batters off balance, and the Sea Dogs had trouble coming up with timely hits.

Scorer's Notes:

• Merkin Valdez appeared in relief and was a much different pitcher than when I saw him in April. He started that game and was throwing his fastball in the upper 90's, topping out at 99 mph. Last night the velocity on his fastball was nearly 10 mph slower. He threw a lot of offspeed pitches and topped out at 91 mph on the radar. Combined with his move to the bullpen, this has me wondering about an injury, though I have been unable to find any news of one. Perhaps the Giants are simply having him keep the pressure off his arm for the rest of the season.
• The rest of the Giants bullpen was stellar. Billy Sadler pitched two innings in relief, allowing just one walk. Brian Wilson pitched the 9th and simply blew the Sea Dogs away, striking out the side with his 97 mph fastball and 87 mph slider in collecting his 7th save. Wilson lowered his AA ERA to 0.61 in the process. Wilson was a 24th round pick out of LSU in 2003 and hasn't really registered on the Giants prospect lists, but he looks pretty good to me.
• Von Schell, Norwich's first baseman who has struggled with the bat this season, had three hits and scored two runs, including the home run in the second. On the season he's hitting 232/278/365-12-59. His power numbers are decent, but his overall performance has been lacking.
• Hanley Ramirez had a very unimpressive 2-4 game, with two strikeouts and two infield singles and a walk. He did not swing the bat well, but sometimes it's all in how the ball bounces. On the other hand, Scott Youngbauer's torrid pace continued as he hit two doubles and reached on a HBP. Youngbauer, a switch hitter, is swinging the bat well from both sides of the plate.
• I watched the game with David's family, who were celebrating David's father's birthday. We watched the game from the general admission seats in section 212. This proved to be more difficult in following each pitch (especially when the rains came and the umbrellas came out in front of us), but the view made it easier to follow the location of batted balls. There are far more distractions when you are further from the field, not the least of which were the others in our party. David, who is the proprietor of Total Recap.com, which sells the best baseball score books available, of course had much of his family decked out. Including the two official BIS consultants, there were five of keeping score. It was David's objective that every single scorebook contain a complete and accurate record of the game, no matter how young or inexperienced the scorekeeper in question was, which meant that sometimes we weren't 100% focused on the field. I think we us all ended up with the same results in the end, which is good. It was a challenge, but a lot of fun nonetheless.