Luis Devers – Picture by Todd Johnson
I just felt tense all day long. Between the trade deadline, the Wilson Instagram story, and trying to sign Jackson Ferris to a contract before Monday got here, I felt uncomfortable about all three. Thankfully, baseball games took my mind off it for quite a while tonight until I saw that Jim Callis posted that Ferris signed for $3,005,000. That pretty much used up any extra bonus pool money to sign Blake Blatter and JP Wheat. But much to my surprise, Greg Zumach pointed out in his wonderful article tonight that Wheat posted his signing pictures on his Instagram account. Thanks for the heads up Greg!
Back to the Fields
Starting Pitcher of the Day
This was a bit tough.
What made it even tougher was that Wade Miley did a rehab start in South Bend which took Luis Devers spot. Devers would come in in the fourth inning and throw five scoreless innings. He only allowed three hits, and walked one while striking out six. This was the best performance of the day by far. Even though it was in a relief role, I’m going to give today’s award to Devers because…just because.
Not to be out done, DJ Herz had his second start for Tennessee. After the first inning where he gave up a run, Herz settled down and then rolled through four scoreless innings and struck out five including three in a row at one point. He looked much more at ease with Bryce Windham behind the plate and I really liked what I saw from DJ. He looked right at home at Double-A. It’s too bad he got an honorable mention today.
Tyler Santana of Myrtle Beach also gets an honorable mention as he went 5.2 innings and allowed two runs while striking out seven. Caleb Kilian of Iowa had one of the weirdest stat lines you’ll see this year. He threw four innings and gave up one run. He only gave up one hit but he walked six and also struck out six. It took him 82 pitches to get through those four frames as only 43 of those pitches were for strikes.
Reliever of the Day
Since I made the executive decision to move Devers to the starting pitcher award, that was purposefully done so that Hunter Bigge could win today’s reliever of the day award because he was just vicious!!! He came on in relief of Devers and pitched the ninth and the tenth innings. He struck out four batters including all three in the tenth inning with a ghost runner on second base. Hunter has not given up a run the entire month as he’s struck out 14 in 11.1 innings this month while opponents have hit .083 against him. He’s going to be in consideration for Reliever of the Month on Monday.
The Hitter of the Day
This award was a bit trickier. Pablo Aliendo and BJ Murray both had two hit days for South Bend but each of them only drove in one run. Andy Weber of Tennessee also had a two hit day, which is getting to be the norm for him since he came back after IL, but he didn’t drive in any runs
Iowa had three guys that hit solo home runs in Dixon Machado, Narciso Crook, and Matt Mervis. But they all only drove in one.
As a result, that leads today’s Hitter of the Day award for Ethan Hearn who went 2-for-5 with a home run and 2 RBI. Hearn also scored twice and right now it looks to be in the lead for hitter of the week as he’s got two home runs and six RBIs in three games this week while going 5-for-13. I like how he’s been swinging the bat lately. That’s good.
I’ll be back in the morning with a look at Christopher Paciolla. It is our third draft profile of this year’s draft class. It looks like they are going to be 19 of them so it’s going to take me about two months to get them all done at two a week.
